Keir Starmer

[Didsbury Dave]

You should read up on the Third Way and why it fails.

It succeeded in providing the best and most unifying government in my lifetime.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

And what's left of it?

A memory of 15 years of good government which gave us a booming economy, improved public services, better healthcare for all, shorter waiting lists, more efficient and accountable education, more accessible higher education and better social cohesion.

Some of these things are still “left” actually but they are being eroded because they’ve been out of power for 20 years.

If you think far left wing politics are the answer to this mess then you have not been paying attention. They had a chance and ended up fucking it for the rest of us. The hard left are as responsible for Brexit and Johnson as anyone else through their folly and refusal to learn from the past. The electorate will NOT buy it.

 

[The perfect fumble]

It succeeded in providing the best and most unifying government in my lifetime.

From 1997 to 2015 we effectively had this....

The Third Way.

It gave us Brexit, it gave us austerity, it gave us Corbyn, it gave us May, it gave us Johnson.

The Third Way is abdication politics, top down centre right mush that ruthlessly kettles real issues and real dividing lines until they can be kettled no longer and they break free! Hence Corbyn, hence Johnson, tearing up the joint with fractious us and them politics.

It is the illusion of middle of the road, it's not the middle of anything, it is a denial of political reality, a superficially attractive proposition which after time is exposed as establishment politics with a smile and a twist of neo-liberalism.

It fails, it always fails, what good it does evaporates and what it bequeaths is disastrous, it gave us all the above, in the States it gave them Trump.

 

[M18CTID]

Serious question. What does Keir and Labour need to do to get this shambles out of government? Why are the Conservatives still polling higher than Labour after the complete shambles of the last 16 months? I’m not very political, I just want a government that cares about the people, services and the country.

It’s difficult to explain why the Tories are still polling so well because even long-standing Tories I know don’t think this current government are much good. Perhaps it’s down to the millions of lifelong Labour voters who switched sides at the last GE and they need a lot more convincing to go back to Labour? With the pandemic dominating the landscape over the past 18 months, I suppose Starmer hasn’t had much chance to tackle the Tories on all the other issues, and while the govt has made plenty of mistakes regarding Covid decisions, many people feel Labour wouldn’t have done much better.
Of course, the reason why so many Labour voters switched to Conservative was down to Brexit. Johnson said he would deliver it, while Corbyn sat on the fence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that at the previous election, Corbyn did far better as he had a definitive stance on delivering Brexit and nearly pulled off an unlikely win.
I think Starmer can win that support back over time now that Brexit has happened and there won’t be much else in the Tory locker to entice those voters at the next election. I know Johnson pledged to look after those voters but I’m not sure how much he can actually do for them. He can’t exactly create tens of thousands of new jobs out of thin air in some of the most deprived areas of the country.

 

[Vic]

From 1997 to 2015 we effectively had this....

The Third Way.

It gave us Brexit, it gave us austerity, it gave us Corbyn, it gave us May, it gave us Johnson.

The Third Way is abdication politics, top down centre right mush that ruthlessly kettles real issues and real dividing lines until they can be kettled no longer and they break free! Hence Corbyn, hence Johnson, tearing up the joint with fractious us and them politics.

It is the illusion of middle of the road, it's not the middle of anything, it is a denial of political reality, a superficially attractive proposition which after time is exposed as establishment politics with a smile and twist of neo-liberalism.

It fails, it always fails, what good it does evaporates and what it bequeaths is disastrous, it gave us all the above, in the States it gave them Trump.

Oh dear. Conflating New Labour and Tory (Libdem) austerity.

But damn that awful period of consensus politics for the revival of nationalistic fascism.

 

[west didsblue]

From 1997 to 2015 we effectively had this....

The Third Way.

It gave us Brexit, it gave us austerity, it gave us Corbyn, it gave us May, it gave us Johnson.

The Third Way is abdication politics, top down centre right mush that ruthlessly kettles real issues and real dividing lines until they can be kettled no longer and they break free! Hence Corbyn, hence Johnson, tearing up the joint with fractious us and them politics.

It is the illusion of middle of the road, it's not the middle of anything, it is a denial of political reality, a superficially attractive proposition which after time is exposed as establishment politics with a smile and twist of neo-liberalism.

It fails, it always fails, what good it does evaporates and what it bequeaths is disastrous, it gave us all the above, in the States it gave them Trump.

Conflating 1997-2010 Labour with 2010-15 Tory austerity is a bit of a stretch.

 

[west didsblue]

Oh dear. Conflating New Labour and Tory (Libdem) austerity.

But damn that awful period of consensus politics for the revival of nationalistic fascism.

Beat me to it.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Conflating 1997-2010 Labour with 2010-15 Tory austerity is a bit of a stretch.

No it isn't, Cameron was the heir to Blair, there is next to nothing to distinguish between them, Brown was up for a bit of tinkering, but Blair/Cameron/Osborne? Peas in a pod.

You're looking at The Third Way, right there, don't kid yourself otherwise.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Oh dear. Conflating New Labour and Tory (Libdem) austerity.

But damn that awful period of consensus politics for the revival of nationalistic fascism.

So what's your take? That spontaneously we all went mad?

 

[NJ Blue]

It’s difficult to explain why the Tories are still polling so well because even long-standing Tories I know don’t think this current government are much good. Perhaps it’s down to the millions of lifelong Labour voters who switched sides at the last GE and they need a lot more convincing to go back to Labour? With the pandemic dominating the landscape over the past 18 months, I suppose Starmer hasn’t had much chance to tackle the Tories on all the other issues, and while the govt has made plenty of mistakes regarding Covid decisions, many people feel Labour wouldn’t have done much better.
Of course, the reason why so many Labour voters switched to Conservative was down to Brexit. Johnson said he would deliver it, while Corbyn sat on the fence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that at the previous election, Corbyn did far better as he had a definitive stance on delivering Brexit and nearly pulled off an unlikely win.
I think Starmer can win that support back over time now that Brexit has happened and there won’t be much else in the Tory locker to entice those voters at the next election. I know Johnson pledged to look after those voters but I’m not sure how much he can actually do for them. He can’t exactly create tens of thousands of new jobs out of thin air in some of the most deprived areas of the country.

Thanks for the replies. Jeremy Corbyn was completely unelectable, so the only real choice was Boris. Brexit may now be done, so I’d expect to see the polls favouring Labour after the disastrous last 18 months we have all been through. I agree that another party may not have done any better, but I don’t think that they could have done any worse! It’s a big question that Keir and Labour need to address in the next couple of years to get the electorate back on side.