... not to understand the loathing of Keir Starmer?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

So many people who haven't voted Labour, whether they used to or not, say they haven't voted Labour in yesterday's elections because of Keir Starmer. Is that shorthand for 'the current state of the Labour Party' or is it genuinely a real dislike of the man himself? He seems very bland and inoffensive to me, and in some ways is doing an OK job - e.g. in keeping us out of Trump's war without rupturing relations with the US. Maybe his blandness is the problem. Can anyone explain why people have this reaction to Starmer?

Sorry you’re sounding more than a little hysterical.

“him and Rachel fucking Thieves are a pair of cunts who have basically made anything good about the uk shit in the past 2 years”- like what exactly?

“they have hiked up just about everything they can and don’t give a shit as it won’t affect them one bit”- like what exactly?

Being a good communicator has always been important in politics. I know the policies etc should matter the most but if you want to succeed and implement your policies then you need to get through to people and Starmer doesn’t.

Couldn’t agree more
if it put my tin foil hat on 😂

i would believe that’s he’s in place to cause as much shit and mayhem in the uk as he possibly can while he is in office

i can’t think of any other reason he would do what he is doing other than someone is telling him to do so

he really seems to hate the uk and hates the British people

pretty much everything he has done is not good for the uk - from the farmers Chago islands immigration / small boats to digital id and the disabled

its like he wakes up every day and think how can I fuck off the British public today 😂

Just in case you needed more evidence of why people dislike him. I mean, what a pair of clowns….

It’s not labours fault!!!’

People in the UK are less well-off due to a combination of stagnant wage growth, high inflation eroding purchasing power, and skyrocketing housing and essential service costs. This situation is compounded by long-term productivity stagnation, reduced investment, and the lasting economic impacts of three major shocks: the 2008 financial crash, Brexit, and COVID-19. Key factors contributing to the decline in living standards include:
Cost of Living Crisis: High inflation, particularly in food and energy, has significantly reduced disposable income, with lower-income households being the hardest hit.
Housing Costs: High rental and mortgage costs are a major factor, with younger generations and families spending a larger proportion of their income on housing compared to previous generations.
Frozen Tax Thresholds: Freezing income tax thresholds until 2031 means that as earnings increase, people are paying higher taxes in real terms, a phenomenon known as fiscal drag.
Low Productivity & Investment: The UK has experienced historically low productivity growth since 2008 and some of the lowest investment rates in the G7.
Stagnant Wages: Real wages have seen minimal growth for over a decade, failing to keep pace with the rising costs of living.
Weak Public Services: Crumbling infrastructure and strained public services, such as the NHS, have also contributed to a reduced quality of life and economic inefficiency.
Economic Inequality: While average incomes have grown slowly, wealth remains heavily concentrated in assets like housing, creating a stark divide between property owners and those who rent.
The cumulative effect of these factors is that many people, particularly lower-income families, are feeling significantly poorer and are facing increased financial pressure compared to five or ten years ago.

I’m not hysterical at all

I just think that those two are a pair of cunts who really don’t like the uk or British people
everything they seem to do is anti British at the moment

sorry if that annoys you

I’ve voted labour in the past so I’m not anti labour at all

Answering your questions in order

I'm not really sure re Brexit

i've long said the NHS can't continue in its current form and we need to look at European models - someone told me the Taiwanese model is good but I haven't looked into it. The amount of money that gets wasted is huge, but I don't think any government is brave enough to make redundancies.

I thought austerity finished in 2019. I definitely want more police on the street, for example but they seem to have time to investigate other stuff so that's quite confusing too

depleted services - I mostly notice that with police!

yeah, I put that mildly with "not thrilled". I'm trying to keep an open mind. It seems like politicians of any party are only interested in asset stripping

It's now a case of who drives us into bankruptcy first - and the conditions that would be imposed by an IMF loan would be a lot harder than any austerity we've seen so far

I think we last had an economic surplus at the turn of the century

I wish I had faith in someone to fix it - but I don't.

I don't pretend to have answers. I answered @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g as I thought it was a genuine question and deserved a genuine answer

If I knew how to save the country, I'd be out there trying to save the country.

I feel as if you're taking issue with my comment that I'm not thrilled at the prospect of a Reform government. I'm not saying anything more dramatic than that because I'm not prone to dramatics 🤷🏽‍♀️

Maybe it would be a disaster, I don't know - but I do think there's a risk of bankruptcy with Labour and Reform. I think it's just about possible that the Tories might make choices to keep us away from that.

The Tories put us in this shit!!!! How are you forgetting the past 14 years!!!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

It's now a case of who drives us into bankruptcy first - and the conditions that would be imposed by an IMF loan would be a lot harder than any austerity we've seen so far

The right has been predicting an IMF bailout since Labour got into power. It is hyperbole.

And none of what he’s and Rachel Theives have put in place in the last two years will affect me or my family

Im not struggling to put food on the table each week

I don’t have to think if I can heat my house or buy food this week

the increase in the cost of petrol makes no difference to me or my lifestyle

I can still afford to go out for meals several times a month

I can still have 2-3 holidays abroad each year and weekends away

overall I don’t have to think can I afford this when I go shopping or buy something

I can spend money of luxuries each week and it makes no difference to me

I know that I and my family are lucky that we are in this position as so many aren’t

But I still think they are a pair of cunts for doing what they have done to the uk and what they will continue to do while in government

Well, they’re both gone now so things haven’t gone to plan. Streeting is still there though, and they’ll be pulling his strings no doubt. Mandelson should have been booted out of the party years ago, that he was brought back to the heart of government ought to tell you something. None so blind etc.

Yes, I can see that he lacks the skills to engage people well. However, I also think social media, sound bite politics, the relentless churn of information, and the general mind rot that has ensued has done an absolute number on our democracy. Populations around the world have addled minds and it stops them engaging as they would have done even three decades ago. Information overload, dreadful critical thinking skills, and truly terrible foreign agents deliberately undercutting truth with fake news are going to leave us is a very sad place. See: America. We're already on our way.

Completely agree. I was always a staunch labour supporter but could no longer follow a party with such an immoral leader.

@Su1rlie well who are you blaming for the banks going bust? Gordon Brown was in power. If you're thinking the banks weren't regulated enough, I agree. But Labour were in power long enough to introduce more regulations - we didn't even get separations of consumer banking from commercial until 2013.

similarly, I don't know what happened to our economic surplus. But that seems to have disappeared under Labour.

Add in the global factors and I don't know that I want to point the finger at anybody.

Conservatives seem to have been so obsessed with Brexit, I already felt they weren't paying attention to anything else ....and then Boris Johnson turned up 😱

I do blame Boris Johnson for a lot of things.

But looking at the list of options now, I don't want to vote for Labour, or Reform or Greens... it is an absolute shit show of choosing the party you think will cause the least damage.

I don't know who that will be in 2029. We've got a long way to go. If Restore make massive headway, I don't think I can vote for them either, because they might actually be racist? I don't particularly want to walk around my own country with people thinking I ought not to be here. Time will tell.

oh, I'm not clear who is responsible for the fact that we barely seem to have armed forces left.... no wonder people don't vote.

What does he stand for?

I can at least respect politicians - however much I disagree - who stand by their convictions.

The Starmer / Polanski breed have only ome vision: being elected. And they'll bend all their convictions around it.

It's also very irritating that he always looks like he has just been suprised.

@TemperanceWest "The right has been predicting an IMF bailout since Labour got into power. It is hyperbole"

there was one in 1976 though. I was a baby so I can't say I noticed 😂

You do understand the job of a government is to step up and start fixing these issues not just making excuses.
Either make decisions to start fixing things like housing or resign.
They have been in government 2 years yet people like you are still ignoring this mess as it gets worse and worse.

There’s a reason the Tories ran for the hills- it’s not a quick fix.

@hairbearbunches On a point of fact - an ambassador isn’t a government post. It’s a diplomatic civil service post. That’s completely different and it’s why the civil service was so peeved.

A poster on this thread has literally just posted that is the reason and many people comment on this on most posts about him.

A quick fix? They can't even come up with a basic plan. Labour will fix absolutely nothing

What were Labour doing for the previous 20 years then when not in government?
22 years to come up with a plan from top to bottom yet we have this absolute shambles

It’s hardly a shambles compared to the shit show of the Tories.

Brexit f**d us. The Tories and Nigel Farage caused it along with austerity, yet you want more!

Integrity- um let me present Boris and Farage.😆

It's odd how Labour get massive blame for things that the Tories did themselves and yet with them it's sort of accepted, with Labour it isn't. It's as if the rage is doubled because Lab were expected to be different - like dumping your husband because he's unfaithful and a crap shag - only to find your new lover is a crap shag too.
You know who the head of South East water resigned today? I doubt that would have happened under the Tories - they are on the same side as that lot.
Another rail line is being nationalised this week - again, that's a Labour thing, the Tories wouldn't appreciate any of that, it's all about the shareholders, see the other thread on care homes for more on this.
It's said Brigitte Jones' Mr Darcy was modelled on the younger Keir Starmer. But now it seems the Brits always really want a Daniel Cleaver.