Do you want a change of leader?

[Arewethereyetarewe]

BBC are predicting the PM should stand down. I know this is not news, but why can we not have a period of stability?

Andy Burnham is much lefter in terms of policies and may not follow the manifesto Labour got in on.

Left or right the country needs a longer term plan.

What do others think?

I’d like to see a cross party coalition of sensible experienced politicians who work together to bring economic growth and rebuild our armed forces.

Feels like a fairy tale at the moment. Too many egos at the top of the tree (and those who think they can be PM). Apart from Kemi. She has no ego and has a no nonsense, busy mum vibe which I like.

I’m not a labour voter and I think Andy Burham would definitely lose them the next election. For all his faults , Starmer has been a good global statesman managing Trump and relations with Europe. Burnham is too socialist, inward-looking.

No. The media have pushed for discord and change. They don't have most people's wellbeing in mind, being male and very rich.

I think Keir has been a steady ship. Yeah he is not exciting but has more substance than some.

I agree about a cross party focus. There are many issues to resolve, NHS, social care and global warming. Not to mention war in europe and so forth.

Agree about the media pushing for change. It gives them something to report.

I think the rule should be changed so that if there is a change of leader there’s a general election
I know people say you vote for the party not the person- I think that is untrue in reality- I know people who voted Labour with Starmer who would not have done if it were Corbyn, for example

I agree with the idea of cross party working for the big issues like NHS

Burnham’s politics is not the same as Starmer’s that is for sure!

This would help achieve lasting change beyond one political party 😊

I think AB will become PM, there will be a brief surge in optimism and activity, then his inevitable lurch left will damage the economy even more, unemployment will get even worse and everyone will be cross and he’ll be ousted by someone, probably on the right and then there will be another general election and the whole thing will start again.
We have become a joke country - starting from Brexit and the resignation of Cameron we just can’t seem to get a decent run and we have normalised musical chairs. I’m not a big KS fan, although I did vote labour last time. He doesn’t have the backing of too much of the PLP and the welfare reform was an absolute shambles which has impacted his ability to funnel money elsewhere. I don’t agree with a lot of the health spending (such as CDCs) but I can see that nobody will have the political will to seriously reform the NHS, pensions or welfare in a meaningful way but his biggest flaw is the kicking he has given businesses and the consequential rise in unemployment. Also the constant u-turning is just pathetic. I think AB will be worse.

As usual the media are really doing all the pushing. Would like to see Starmer stay to give him the time to implement what he promised but unfortunately I think there will be a challenge in which case would rather have Burnham with Starmer staying as Foreign Secretary and Wes back in a Health

Plus…agree with cross party working on the bigger issues

People forget that Starmer won precisely because he was steady and boring after years of Tory turbulence!
UK elections are nearly always fought in the centre ground. Burnham will lose the floating centrist voters who could accept Starmer.

Absolutely 💯

Starmer should have sacked Reeves. Better still he should never have appointed her. She’s not got a clue and is dragging Starmer down. He’d probably have survived as PM if he had a competent Chancellor.

I think Starmer is generally fairly competent but a very poor communicator (in terms of "vision", "progress", "achievements". And he has made some poor decisions, as anyone would.

i would like to see him & Burnham working together. Harness Burnham's significantly better communication skills, and having another experienced person high up in government giving both challenge and ideas would be good.

Wont happen, though. Too many egos plus presumably the media with their silly games will ensure we get more instability and poor governance.

The Labour Party seem to be split between the old left and the modernisers.

One looking backwards, the other being realistic about what can be paid for and how.

Would prefer Starmer to stay. I think it's awful that AB is seen as some kind of miraculous saviour. Starmer has had a lot of issues to deal with, many not of his own making, and he should be allowed to get on with his job. IMO the media just ramps things up to hysterical proportions, then certain characters jump on the bandwagon for their own purposes.

Well he didn’t really win. It was by default as the Tory vote collapsed. Starmer didn’t get much more votes than Corbyn at the previous general election when the tories won a big majority. It wasn’t that people wanted Starmer, it was that they didn’t want Sunak.

I am not a massive Starmer fan, and he has shot himself in the foot a few times by too many u-turns precipitated by the different factions across the party, plus Streeting and Rayner were mistakes.

But. He is seen internationally as a steady hand at a time when other countries are seen as highly volatile, and big business is beginning to talk to the UK again after some very fractious post-Brexit years. He has managed Trump particularly well. In the current climate, when we are likely to have another financial crash at some point this counts for a lot.

If he would shift some of the domestic policies on business, address the welfare state and sort out local government we might actually see some progress. But people are fed up of pot holes, rubbish mounting up, schools budgets being tightened and not feeling able to invest in their business.

I am sick to the back teeth of revolving Prime Ministers. It's no way to run a corner grocery store never mind a country.

And our next likely one is a Cambridge educated career politician who's never had a job outside politics in his adult life. Don't be fooled by the cute regional accent, he wasn't a feral child on the streets of Liverpool, he grew up in a village of under 4000 houses on the very northern boundary, surrounded by countryside.

Aside from the accent he's no different from any of the other career politicians. At least Starmer has lived in a real world where he had to send invoices to his clients.

Many good points made above. I didn't vote for Labour, but they have met, or are on course to meet more of their manifesto pledges than pretty much any government of the last 50 years. That doesn't get mentioned in the press. Sure, we could have a debate about whether they were valid pledges, but that is a different discussion.

Starmer has made some total howlers, and their budget changes have been mainly correct in principle, but badly executed with incorrect break points.

I think my disappointment lies in the fact that there are no political heavyweights these days in any party. If Burnham gets in, what would his cabinet look like? Who would they be? There are no names that stand out to me. Although I don't like him much, Streeting did a reasonable job, so hopefully there are some other surprises currently under the radar.

I hope so.

Yep a super sensible mum who would have been happy to get us involved in the Iran war.

There's been mutterings that Burnham would have ex transport secretary Louise Haigh as chancellor.

This throws all the upfront sexist "Rachel from accounts" stuff about Reeves into sharp relief. She may have finessed her CV over her role in the bank of England, but Haigh has no economics or finance background at all. Let alone that she had to resign because of lying about that lost phone

Tbh no.