To think if Keir Starmer is ousted there should be a general election

[Viviennemary]

I think the set-up should be changed and if the PM is voted out by his party then there needs to be a general election. I didn't vote for very left wing policies which will happen if Andy Burnham replaces the PM. And neither would have I ever voted for the dreadful Liz Truss who must be the absolute worst PM we've ever had.

🤞

but I do think we are in a cycle of voting for the least worst option at the moment and it would be good to see the main parties offering a positive reason to vote for the

Agree

I'm not so sure Blossom. We are going to see some testing of the main parties that's been long overdue. The fringe parties having nothing to lose. Yes, Reform have invested a lot and their playing the long game might bear fruit. Burnham v Starmer - can't stand Starmer but part of me wants him to grow a backbone and see off Burnham. Out of the two, I'd prefer Starmer to stay. Twat as he is, something is telling me if Burnham gets in he's going to heap more trouble on this government.

I think that the party leader and potential PM does massively influence voting. It's more important than who your local MP is and if a party is going to significantly diverge from what the electorate agreed yo, then there ought to be a GE. It's different when you are swapping one leader for another, who is much the same in terms of ideology, but KS snd AB are not much of a much. There are people who voted for KS who would never have voted for AB.

We also have to get out of this recent habit of ditching PMs every half an hour! It's destabilising the country and making our PMs weak.

O don't know who I'd vote for in a GE tbh - they all seem shit in different ways, so while I think a change of leader and direction should result in a GE, I don't actually want one.

My MP has such a majority my vote is pretty meaningless anyway!!

Only the people in KS constituency voted for him. You might think you voted for him but unless you are in Holborn you didn’t. No matter how much you believe you did you didn’t.

The Manchester mayoral election is not first past the post, it’s using supplementary vote. SV means people get to rank in order of preference. Unless Reform get past 50% in the first round they won’t win. Second preferences taken into account make a Labour victory much, much more likely.

Yes, SV is democratic.Many would argue it’s more democratic than FPTP as more voter preferences are taken into account .

She moaned endlessly about the last Tory government because she thought she paid too much tax. It's all she's interested in.

The flipside is that lots of us voted knowing that, as you say, the UK currently ditches PMs every half hour and our parliamentary democracy allows for that with no GE. I don't know if I'd have voted in the same way if that wasn't our system, or whether the candidates and policies would have been the same. Nobody does.

And that's why OP is BU to suggest change now, as opposed to in the future. It's retconning the votes of people who actually understood our system correctly. Nothing wrong with wanting reform, but if we're to move to a system where we have GEs when we change PM, we need to all know that when we vote.

I do really hope I’m wrong on this, but I do think unless Andy works a miracle, the press will hound him like their life depends on it.

Reform won’t get in because they’ve peaked and are becoming noticeably weaker, but those donors who have previously backed Reform may start to back Restore about 6 months before the election and flood the zone with propaganda so they enjoy a big wave of popularity

All they need to do is field a load of candidates late in the day who then won’t have chance to become stale or be faced with enough scrutiny before gaining a significant vote share with people not fully realising what they’ve actually voted for.

I’m wondering if that has been the plan all along, they could see Reform were losing popularity and Restore was the back up plan. Lowe is backed by Musk. He can throw as much money and misinformation in the world at a campaign.

If he’s ‘hounded’ it is because he’s another insincere politician who will tell people what they want to hear.

To virtue signal that he’s so pro trans and then to change his mind just before running is either weak or manipulative.

Yes by operating efficiency of adult social care but also by renegotiating long standing contracts, by recruitment freeze on non essential posts, by repaying £15 million loan early savings £1 million on interest payments and not wasting tax payers money on non essential things. Council tax was not the usual 5 percent increase either. This year only 3.99 percent increase. They have also increased their pot hole budget too, which is the number one gripe on doorsteps.

Do you not allow that people can their mind on an issue? What's the point of discussion and two sides putting forward arguments if not to convince and bring about a change in thinking? Would you think more of Burnham if he'd have said "Well, four years on, despite me learning more about the subject and listening to the GC people, I intend to completely disregard the SCJ, ignore what women are saying about single sex spaces and campaign for biological men to use them"?
I guess your answer depends heavily on whether you're a TRA or a GC person.
A lot of people have changed their mind on this due to the arguments of GC campaigners. They can't travel back in time and change their previous stance.

Rubbish. The press won't hound him because he is insincere. They will hound him because he's not right wing and because they can without any accountability.

And as for the trans comment, have you never revised your opinion on anything? You know it's a sign of ability to learn and mature to be able to do so?

All politicians tell people what they want to hear, it's how they get elected.

Yes.
"They don't listen to us" Swiftly followed by "They listened and changed their mind, they are weak".

Exactly that @5128gap

Andy Burnham has said he will make welfare cuts. What makes him think he will get that passed by the backbenchers anymore than when Starmer tried it?

Welfare is a broad term. What exactly are you referring to? Because what cuts Burnham would be able to make in this area with the agreement of the party will depend on what exactly he proposes, the impact that will have on people, whether it will be a false economy leading to greater expenses down the line and his mitigations. If he has a proposal that addresses these concerns to the satisfaction of the majority, they will get through. If he doesn't, they don't. Which is a good thing because I wouldn't want cuts that haven't been subject to these scrutinies.

It depends on several factors. One is where and how the cuts are made - he’s already outlined his plans to get young people into work and off benefits. Another is that Starmer appears to have done no work on taking the PLP with him and there seems to be very little party discipline, Burnham is more collegiate. It’s a classic case of it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.

I agree with you OP. All these facile “no that’s not how the system works” posts are pointless. The way I interpret the OP, she is saying we should have a GE before a significant change of direction of a government and it sounds sensible to me.

as for voting for the “politics” of your local MP, how am I meant to know what that might be? I can only get an indication based on the manifesto, which certainly didn’t include any of the stuff being floated around.

You can look at the voting record of your MP.

https://www.ft.com/content/3c059192-9a75-485e-b7cd-541ba2fae729?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Reform UK ran a council for a year. Things went badly
In Staffordshire, Nigel Farage’s party has been hit by resignations, racism allegations and the need to put up taxes

Your post perfectly illustrates why anyone wanting to vote should first have to demonstrate a basic knowledge of the issues.

Or even just the way the system works!

Do you see this as a significant change?

How different do you see Andy Burnham to where you would expect the Labour Party to be?
(In my view, he's a bit closer to their values than Starmer)