Starmer's resigned

[Sadcafe]

So the admittedly boring but truly decent PM has announced his resignation and the egotistical, pompous Burnham will doubtless become PM. God help the country

They are only calling for one if AB cannot fund the defence plan.

How will we have Reform by Christmas?

That's doom talking - there won't be a General Election so all that will happen is that Labour will have a new leader soon. Almost definitely Andy Burnham.

As far as large numbers of voters are concerned he was not "decent", he had a globalist agenda and wanted to bend the knee again to the EU, and he had ideas about mass surveilance/intrusion/ digital ID etc. Good riddance, been a long wait it feels like to get rid of this clown.

And who would you propose instead?

Wes is playing the long game.

AB is just one step away from a bond market showdown at any given moment, get those debts paid down folks!

Andy Burnham is better at communicating than Starmer but I’m not sure what else he’s going to be better at. I think though that matters a lot to people in this day and age. I don’t believe anything of substance will get better but I think people might be reassured that it is, so it could help Labour that way at least for a bit. Politics is a bit depressing.

That fool Steve Bray was at it again I've just realised, playing 'Ode to Joy' on a speaker somewhere. The one who tried to drown out Sunak playing 'Things Can Only Get Better'. (Which they clearly didn't or he wouldn't be celebrating the fall of Starmer.) I loathe him and I can't understand how he manages to get away with this continual nuisance.

It will just be more soundbites, they are useless, they are finished, AB will lead us to the long awaited showdown with the bond market and then usher in a Reform government.

Better at spending money, increasing debt and shafting future generations who will be expected to pay it back.

What is he going to communicate about though? Reform"s communication - That we need less people in the country, and more people off benefits and working is a very easy to understand communication that people can relate to, there is something in the Labour DNA that just wants to give money to people who don"t contribute, they will never change.

Yeh it’s not great to just keep pumping debt onto the next generation.

What short memories some people have.

This country is in the shit mainly due to austerity and Brexit - years and years of underfunding of public services, particularly affecting the poorest in society coupled with us voting to make everything 10 times more difficult and expensive to do business with our largest and closest trading partner, the EU.

The above was brought in by the Tories and UKIP /Farage (and his millionaire backers). Shame on them all.

Keir Starmer is a decent man. I think he would make a brilliant Home or Foreign Secretary. His communication skills are lacking, however, I would take him any day over the grifters of Farage and BoJo.

Andy Burnham has been extremely effective both in his time as Health Secretary & Culture Secretary and as Mayor of Manchester. He is a better communicator than Keir. If he gets to be PM, I wish him well.

Of course he is. Also proof that you can’t trust a word that comes out of any politicians mouth because it’s only good for as long as that interview lasts.

Absolutely, becoming PM now will be so much the poisoned chalice.

Wes is young enough to ride this out and let someone else be the fall guy. I expect he's thinking he can make his bid a few years from now, once they're out of power, been in the wilderness for a bit and ready to make their comeback.

No, but the constituencies in Greater Manchester are pretty representative of the so-called Red Wall and he has managed to secure astonishing levels of goodwill from people right across the political spectrum.

Absolutely, we haven't made a surplus as a country for a very, very long time now. At some point soon we have to look like we might start to turn a profit in the future, or we're really cooked.

Have you seen what he’s done for Manchester’s economy?

Google Manchesterism.

I think the press have hounded Starmer and that is cruel.

Austerity was required because of the 2008 crash. Miliband also supported austerity whilst he was Labour leader heading into the general election. Economists said after the crash it would take 10 years for the economy to recover.

What happened after 10 years? It was the eve of Covid, which had even more detrimental impact on the economy than the 2008 crash. Again, economists said 10 years for the country economy to recover which pushes us to the end of the 2020's decade.

Public sector spending and national debt has risen far higher than inflation over the past 15 years, so it's arguable whether we even had austerity in any meaningful form.

A decent man wouldn’t use Enoch Powells rivers of blood speech. He has taken Labour so far to the right, the door is wide open for reform now.

I know not everyone lives round here so if you don’t - look at Burnham’s record in Manchester. He has been transformative economically. A country is not a combined authority, obviously. But if you’re going to talk him down, do so from a position that’s informed.

Mostly based on property Ponzi economics and debt?

Nothing screams stable democracy more than 6 PMs in 10 years...

I agree with Matthew Syed's assessment:

Starmer was hated. Says more about the electorate than the man. Impossible to govern when people want welfare, triple lock, tax loopholes, NIMBY'ist vetoes, while also hating a low growth high debt economy this entails. Starmer was a good man leading an ungovernable country.