To think we don’t know how lucky we are under Starmer.

[SevenYellowHammers]

Russia have a mad despot who is responsible for the deaths of Russians and Ukrainians and has caused untold damage on the world’s environment and economy. But he’s still in power.

The USA have a mad despot who’s causing deaths worldwide and has started a war he can’t win causing untold damage to the world’s economy and environment. But he’s still in power.

Israel have a mad despot who is committing genocide and putting Jewish people at risk across the world. But he’s still in power.

In the UK, we have a dull bloke who’s doing his best to stand up to the mad despots while not leading us into war. And we’re all trying to get rid of him.

Hi Kier nice of you to come on MN as you desperately try to cling on to power.

I agree @SevenYellowHammers

I'm disappointed in him, very disappointed in how he's been held back by the party and hasn't done the things I'm quite sure he knows needs to be done due to political reasons. But I'd trust him to steer a steady ship on the world stage while he is surrounded by madmen. Farage will get in on a web of lies he's totally incapable of delivering and then we're completely fucked.

If the bar is on the floor then yea, sure

Well whoever wants the country utterly divided is going to be rubbing their hands in glee. Whatever you think about Starmer and the government and, in fact, Badenoch and the opposition, we’re more and more divided and heading for more and more years of chaos.

I dont think he's fantastic but I want a good bit of boring for the time being.

Yeah, that’s fair enough. It’s disappointing, that’s true. I wonder if he’s tried so hard to under sell and manage expectations he’s made his own leadership seem disappointing?

You’re not wrong! Are we being purposely destabilised? I try to avoid conspiracies but this division means we’re never going to enjoy a period of calm or optimism.

I completely agree. Whenever I see these ‘time to resign’ posts I just think… sorry, what? Why would he? He isn’t going to solve all the countries problems over night! Give him a bastard chance! As someone with 3 young kids he has given me extra child benefit & free breakfast clubs so I have certainly benefited more from Labour so far than I ever did conservatives!

I like him and have done since his impassioned anti-Brexit speeches back in the day. I am slightly disappointed he's not quite so impassioned these days but fear he is stymied by the media who all seem to hate him for no real reason. I think the Labour party ARE getting on with stuff but all anyone hears is about welfare scroungers and small boats. It will take a LONG time to get over the Tory years but instead of supporting the necessary, all the media focus is on fecking Reform and Farage who have no policies or plans at all. I like it that the Labour party is not blaming immigrants for all the woes of society and actually trying to do something. I think even they realise they need to work faster. They certainly need some better PR.

So you think we are doing well to have Starmer because he is not as bad as Putin or Trump?

I think we can do a bit better than that!!

He is an utter tool (makers son).

I agree OP. We seem to have got used to the insanity of the politics of recent years and now it's "normal" to have constant chaos and new PM every five bloody minutes.

Yes I agree. There have been some mistakes but some steady good Labour policies that mainly go unnoticed, e.g. reductions in NHS waiting lists showing already, more hospital appointments, increased minimum wage, better workers’ rights including maternity protections, bereavement leave, banning zero-hours contracts; improved renters’ rights including pet ownership, new publicly owned clean energy company, renewable energy investment, increased school funding, improved EU trade cooperation. Also implementing some long term industrial strategy for economic growth.
But the good goes unnoticed.
It’s bizarre- with Labour everyone turns a blind eye to the good things.
Yet with Reform the blind eye is turned to all the (very) bad things. [ e.g. the many shabby self serving indications including fossil fuel promotion, edging towards a private health care model, spending 1000’s ignoring domestic duties to try and see Trump, repeated dodgy donations, overt lies, scaremongering and diversions of expenses.]

Renationalisation of British Steel today I heard, plus trying to take more control over the shabby water companies and rail network...waiting lists down, small boats down, asylum backlog halved, investment in the poorest wards etc. It's all drowned out by bloody Reform and flag shaggers.

I think so. Social media is easily manipulated. The media is owned by some powerful people. Chaos suits Putin's agenda and we already know there was Russian interference in Brexit.

Yep

Hes not perfect but hes the most stable PM we have had in some time. I think he would step down if it was the right thing to do, but he knows it isnt. I hope he stays.

The obsession with unseating Keir Starmer is media fuelled and depressing. That said, I’m not sure “he’s not Vladimir Putin” is much of a compliment.

Agree with the post from @Slowdownyouredoingfineand the other rational posters on here. He’s a decent man who’s doing a steady job surrounded by despots. Obviously the Brexiters won’t support him, but if you’re generally centrist or left of centre then we need to club together to stop the rw press and social media companies getting Reform in meaning all scrutiny and checks and balances go out the window and the rich just continue to get richer. You think Farage / Trump and the rest care about poor people getting wealthier or healthier? Think again.

Yes, Labour have actually begun to make some positive changes - which ALMOST NEVER get reported, eg:

the renters rights bill,
NHS waiting lists down
free school breakfast clubs
free childcare rollout
workers rights reform
500,000 more kids receiving free school meals
highest defence spending since Cold War
railways under public ownership
youth EU travel scheme

Plus closer ties to Europe and economy was slowly progressing until Trumps war.

This is not Amazon Prime life, it’s real life and real politics and progress takes time and a bit of patience. We have 5 year terms for a reason -to allow a realistic timeframe to get things done. I run a business and I’ve moved into other organisations to head departments - whenever I have a development plan I know it will take me a few years to implement and not overnight. We all need to get real.

Immigration is also down, not that you'd ever know it going by the media and all the other rhetoric at the moment.

Partly in response to a media that is broadly driving discourse towards the lowest common denominator. There’s an element of this that’s about feeling a need to be seen to respond to something that has become a vicious cycle of negative coverage in order to protect the party. He’s certainly made mistakes, and he would ideally learn to communicate more effectively, but at the same time ‘more effectively’ for a lot of audiences now seems to mean ‘flattening of nuance’ and simplistic messages like ‘common sense government’ as if the complex economic issues of late stage capitalism and current political climate could easily be solved if only Terry from next door’s ideas on small boats were finally heard. It’s hard - he’s definitely not the most effective leader but as others have pointed out it could be significantly worse.

Totally agree re Starmer.

The current govt have actually done a lot of good work - the economy has already improved a lot since they came in, even more so compared to comparable countries. And will the millstone of Brexit around our necks.

Starmer’s done good work in bringing us closer to Europe at a time when this is absolutely paramount. He’s built up some great relationships, and they do depend on us being able to keep the same PM for more than 5 mins.

Sunak was better than some of his predecessors - he was hamstrung by the positions he’d had to take up to become leader of his loony (currently) party though.

I don’t agree with his policies but as a person I think he’s pretty straight and I respect that.

I do not want anyone else from Labour. The country specifically voted for Kier. Can we stop with this nonsense of changing prime ministers like socks. It does not help anything!