Give Starmer a chance

[Spotty1964]

I feel sick that the treacherous nobody's will not give Starmer a chance at least to turn things around. Labour do betrayal very good.

You say Starmer should get a chance to turn things around. Turn what around ? Surely if he has to turn things around then whatever he has been doing till now is flawed ?

Also, we are a representative democracy. MPs are supposed to represent their constituents. We don't know what discussions MPs are having with anyone, But if they fail to listen and act on what their constituents say, then would that not make them treacherous towards the UK system of democracy. It is the Labour Party that won the last GE, not Starmer. And MP's first duty is to deliver the manifesto they promised to their electorate. See above re listening to their constituents.

I'm with OP. Labour inherited an absolute train wreck after 14 years of Tory incompetence and cynicism. Now everybody's cross the mess hasn't been tidied up in under two years. Following a bewildering array of prime ministers - five in five years - most of them shysters or nitwits, we wanted a calm grown-up and that's what we've got.

I do NOT want another revolving door at No 10, neither do I want policy changes like a switchback. I want the steady repair job Labour governments have historically done well. I mean, I'd like them to stay in government long enough to see things through past the repairs and into sustainable growth, but I've lived in this country long enough to know we'll vote for a greedier party as soon as we feel like we're on solid ground.

Fair enough. Now without looking it up, name a couple of good results from the current guv. I can think of a couple, but the issue is that Starmer does not seem a great communicator. In my view the figurehead at the moment needs to be someone gobby. Gobby and factual.

Re my post above. If the electorate are not aware of good results, then they will complain to their MPs.

@NoGarlic
I do NOT want another revolving door at No 10, neither do I want policy changes like a switchback.

This cuts the other way for me. It’s the endless policy dithering and flip-flopping that I think Starmer’s got wrong.

I want the steady repair job Labour governments have historically done well.

I don’t think they’ve historically done this well. I think Attlee and Blair can claim this, but other labour govts gave us the devaluation crisis, winter of discontent, IMF bailout.

Labour brought this upon themselves.

Had they not been so overtly pro-welfare, pro-tax, and condescending to those who have concerns about immigration, Reform would never have gathered the support in such numbers. The ‘R’ card has lost all meaning, and they can no longer use it.

Starmer has lost all political legitimacy and Reeves should follow him out.

Starmer should stay. I agree 100%.

I am not a Starmer fan but agree changing leader will not help.

Also, people keep saying the country is ungovernable. It isn't. The PLP is.

They had a giant, if shallow, majority and are busy squandering it.

The Labour Party is too broad a church and that will make it difficult for anyone. They managed to keep a lid on their internal disagreements long enough to unseat the Tories but then they all came bubbling up. Whoever replaces KS will have exactly the same issues and also struggle to get anything done. They don’t have time to fight Reform/ the Greens because they’re too busy squabbling amongst themselves. Shambolic.

one of the first things the Labour government did was give in to the train drivers with a pay rise
the public would like a populist pm such as Andy Burnham
the impossible rise of benefits and the poor performance of the nhs and hundreds of illegal immigrants arriving daily cannot be ignored

I also think the “giant but shallow majority” that @JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff refers to is relevant. Their majority was built on a really low share of the vote so it’s not surprising they’ve had problems as the seats don’t reflect their actual popularity. It’s kind of a house on the sands situation. I really think we need to reform FPP due to exactly this problem.

I think a leadership challenge is self indulgent. Removing KS now creates more instability than anything else. There's no clear successor, getting rid of KS will unsettle the markets. The global sphere has enough instability atm.

I really hope he digs in. No one else is going to make a difference.

As for Andy Burnham, he quit being an MP to take on the Manchester mayoralty. He apparently wants to flip flop back now there's a chance of the top job. Self indulgent again.

The trouble is that the tail has been wagging the dog in the Labour Party since the winter fuel allowance U turn, and Max Headroom Starmer has no charisma for the public to follow and few leadership skills for his own MPs to follow.

I despair at yet another change in PM but it's obviously inevitable.

I don't think a PM needs charisma, I see KS as someone with a steady hand on the tiller, something I can't see any of his rivals achieving before a GE.

Unfortunately his popularity with the public says that you aren't correct.

If you said he should be judged on results I would agree with you, but in modern social media politics the PM needs to be able to give a speech which doesn't sound like it's being delivered by Marvin the Paranoid Android.

How’s that steady hand on the tiller working so far?

I think the issue is that you can be a "good administrator" PM if your party is united and you are getting stuff done but they are not because he doesn't have the support of his party for his agenda. They stuck this moderate in to win the election and then torpedoed him. A plague on all their houses, seriously. I'm starting to doubt whether democracy can actually function in the current social media driven shit storm. They need to stop spending all their time bitching on WhatsApp and actually do something.