Question Time Leaders Special

[TheShellBeach]

On now BBC1

I’m not a Tory voter and never have been but agree that lots of people have reasons to vote Tory and shouldn’t be demonised for doing so. In particular I understand those who vote for the traditional more centrist version of the party, I have a lot of time for the likes of Rory Stewart and Ken Clark. I take a bit more exception with those supporting the right wing verging on fascist charlatans that have emerged in recent years.

I am just so fucking sick of being expected to put my trust and hope and therefore vote in the hands of people that can't just answer a fucking question. It's infuriating, all this blustering and repetitive party crap. I hate it all.

I've voted Labour all my life but look at what they have become. Wouldn't vote Tory with a gun to my head; absolute incompetent, lying, superior, insulting idiots.

Politically homeless.

I don’t even know why he is PM! The job is not a CEO. All sorts of commoners will ask you questions. Accountability is not a manifesto that reads like a corporate report. He has zero political nous. I see why he lost to Truss. Really see why they are losing vote share.

Politically homeless

Same here.

I think (could be wrong, of course. Probably I’m talking rubbish!) that he is attempting to be as un-controversial as possible to appeal to as many different facets of potential labour voters.

He needs to be attractive to the left, central and right of the party. The people who would have voted for John Smith RIP and the people who voted for Blair. He’s had to keep the Corbynites on side.

Massive generalisation here, but Labour want working class factory workers in Sheffield to vote for them and wealthy but with a social conscience professionals in Wimbledon and Tory leaning business owners who feel let down by the Tories to vote for them as well.

I think it’s easier to define a typical Green Party voter for example and the more right wing Tory voters are being drawn to Reform.

I initially thought Starmer was weak and disappointing. I actually left the party when he sanctioned politicians attending the railways strikes. Now I think (hope) he’s actually played a really clever game and when in power will be much more definite. You don’t get to be DPP by being a wally.

@bombastix @Apolloneuro is agree if that's his lawyerly training he is certainly sticking to it. I think though maybe I'm expecting the wrong qualities in him from the job he did. I asssume being DPP is much more about steering an organisation, making policy on how to deal with issues and generally managing a large number of people, rather than the eloquence I hoped for. It does make him robotic but if he's a good manager of government, and has a commitment to the values he put in his manifesto I will forgive him the monotonous pronouncements.

Important point. Put the vote to the membership and who do they choose? Truss. Then she sinks the economy. That we are told to now be thankful is in some recovery. Sunak is an unelected PM. The only saving grace is that he's been out of t he limelight due to his predecessors and everyone being totally sick of it all. The last few weeks we have got to see him, and he's nothing but a matchstick man. Diabolical performance. A little flag shagging that got the gammons in the audience a little wet and the oft' repeated I'll get your taxes down.

You have to be kidding, Johnson lost his security detail and courted oligarchs. Corbyn would have been a million times better than Johnson. The machine of government though isn't one person. Which always makes these presidential debates pretty pointless.

His dad was a toolmaker and mother a nurse. Strangely he gets laughed at for saying he had a pretty ordinarily start in life. Some people just like to mock.

I have to agree with a PP. Starmer's background and upbringing are quite reassuring. To leap to DPP is astonishingly adroit. To take the risky step into politics is brave. He may become a healing PM. We need one. I wish him well personally, because I hope/think he understands the responsibility he is about to shoulder.

This is exactly what I think about him too. I remember talking to a friend a while ago who had been a Corbyn fan and was disappointed by Starmer as leader. I said that I thought there was no chance that Corbyn would ever have been elected by the UK electorate and that I thought Starmer seemed like a decent and intelligent man who was playing the long game, wanting to carefully place himself to be electable and have the chance of being able to bring a labour government to power. To do that, I think he has been treading a very fine line between trying to offer hope of change but swerve offending people and turning them away from considering voting for his party. A bit of tactical fence sitting to avoid upsetting people long enough to give him the chance to be elected.

It's looking likely he will be our next prime minister, I'm hoping that if/when he is, he will feel more empowered to speak more freely and decisively. Fingers crossed I won't be disappointed 🤞

Yeah he did not come across well. All airy fairy and somewhat over-emotional

Thats what makes these debates interesting as two people can watch the same thing and see totally different things as I was impressed with him, thought he was a good speaker and got his points across well, even with some of the idiotic questions that were just asked to get a reaction which luckily he didn’t give them

The only part where I thought oh come on Ed was his answer about the post office scandal. Very much a ‘nothing to do with me’ answer

Agreed - that makes it interesting. I thought Starmer did best and am inclined to give him a chance at the election, as I loathe the current batch of Tories and don't want the high tax and spend of LibDems. I felt a bit sorry for Sunak until he made his absurd ECHR speech. Silly little man still has not understood that Parliament can change laws but not facts - if the Supreme Court says Rwanda is not safe, then no legislation changes the reality of that.

I think he is the best example of why a CFO (Chancellor) should never be a CEO (PM). It is an entirely different skill-set and people who are CFOs often seem impressive in that role because it is quite technical so most people are not in a position to judge whether in fact they are any good or not

I don't understand what's reassuring (or not) about Starmer's average, not desperate poverty, background. I don't care about the childhood backgrounds of the PMs. Their and their parties policies are what's important.

If people care about and vote on backgrounds, why did Tony Blair (very privileged background) win against John Major (grew up in a council house and left school at 16)?

(With the Toolmaker thing. I understand people weren't mocking Starmer's dad. They laughed because it's become his kind of catchphrase. On a related note, I wonder if it's inspired interest in the job. Perhaps it might inspire the creation of vocational training, including in toolmaking).

This and

I am just so fucking sick of being expected to put my trust and hope and therefore vote in the hands of people that can't just answer a fucking question

And

Starmer's biggest problem is he can't answer any question directly.

Sums it up. Evasion plus toolmaker swizz. Plus some answers are rage inducing see earlier one on using child’s murder to avoid answering anything on that topic

I thought it was actually very well managed. People had a chance to ask decent questions, they had a chance to respond. Fiona did a good job of holding them to account when they fluffed around the questions. Maybe not the most inspirational TV. But equally I think we have lost our way in politics. Do we need spectacular and exciting TV debates, with TV personality politicians. Or do we actually just need someone who is an actual public servant, maybe a bit boring, but actually knows what they are doing?

Sensationalist politics isn't working in the US.

His father owned a tool factory. He's deliberately lying to the public in order to make himself appear more ordinary.

He was a useless CFO that pissed away £400 billion on COVID - including immense amounts via fraud.

What skill set?

I watched about 5 mins of the bloke - I did not know his name but knew of his face. I listen to the bS that came of of his mouth re their promises to abolish stude fees and we turned over the channel

@DistinguishedSocialCommentator you're not living up to your name if you can't recognise one of the top 4 party leaders in the UK even though he was introduced, and has been all over the news.

Oh FFS Starmer isn't being evasive and untrustworthy. He is desperately walking a tightrope to try and bring as many people with him as possible to try and get a Labour government.

Dont forgot that the default for this country is a conservative government (God knows why!). Since 1900 only 3 Labour leaders have won general elections compared to 10 Tory leaders. And Labour has only won 8 out of the 32 general elections in that time.

For some reasons people in this country will default to the Conservatives most of the time because for some unknown reasons they are seen as "most trustworthy with the economy and the country".

It is actually really really hard for Labour to win, so please forgive Starmer for being careful, and little robotic. He is probably carefully calculating every word and phrase so as not to put off anyone and ruin the huge lead in the polls Labour have got.

I am 100% sure once he gets into power, he will become much more self assured, direct, and hot the ground running to reverse 14 years of the Tories running this country into the ground. And my God I am so looking forward to that day!

This message he is giving and you have picked up is an important one. It is what gets Labour to win.

So much of this election is a challenge to old ways of politics. Reform says Britain is broken. I agree with that (though would not vote for them). The nasty truth to come is that Sunak is getting out before it gets worse. There is a literal list of problems that have been building up such as bankrupt councils, universities going best, water failure, prisons failure, NHS winter collapse.

He is going in with his eyes open. So should we and give them a proper opportunity to fix what is a massive challenge

I agree. People swallow the Tory propaganda in the main hence so many Tory governments.

The really rich love it because they get richer and richer. The scams for mates, backhanders and sleeze and the latest insider betting scandal are largely ignored by many voters because the oft repeated mantra of 'well it would be worse under....' now that's what I would call robotic 🤖

The issue a lot of people have with Starmer is that we’re not getting detail from Labour.

The head of the IFS has said on multiple occasions that BOTH of the main parties have been evasive about how they actually plan on paying for their proposals. The fact is taxes either have to go up or funding will have to be cut to pay for what is being proposed.

i really recommend the interview Paul Johnson did for The Rest is Money podcast a few weeks ago as he goes into a lot of detail about the issues with the state of the economy and what is needed to get it back on track.