This post was last modified: 04-04-2020, 12:47 PM by Shuto Makino.
Poor Playercey
Slug and not physical
Zizou
Drunk Cretin & Hassle Magnet
Mikey
Human Rights Respecter
Poor Playercey
Slug and not physical
Poor Playercey
Slug and not physical
(04-04-2020, 01:37 PM)Adonis Aceyjaj Wrote: She certainly wasn't elected as Labour leader, that's true.
Disappointed to see you lashing out with insults. So much for the "tolerant left" amirite everyone?
Nice though it is to see THF 2015 patter making a comeback, it's strange that you'd take being called clever as an insult. Have more self-confidence mate.
Afraid that greggying over her not being elected as Labour leader isn't going to get much of a rise - I basically agree that she wouldn't have been electable. As the Corbyn project demonstrated, 'she's unelectable' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when a large enough cross section of the media repeat it often enough (which isn't to say that Corbyn's only problem was media bias).
(04-04-2020, 01:37 PM)Little Bit Of The Boycey Wrote: Apologies if you feel like I was putting words in your mouth. You mentioned Cameron as your example of articulate white guy in suit, before immediately moving on to Starmer’s lack of charisma in your next sentence, and the two seem pretty interchangeable in this context - Cameron is a prick, but he undeniably did carry a level of charisma. I don’t think you do necessarily ‘need’ charisma to be a successful leader. You do need credibility, especially in the eyes of the electorate. It was lack of credibility and not lack of charisma that cost Corbyn the last election.
Starmer’s electability comes from the credibility I think he has. He isn’t a charismatic speaker, but he is a clear and authoritative one - he can communicate in a way that makes sense to people. He is politically competent and will be able to hold the incompetent Johnson to account in Parliament; his career as a lawyer has served him well in terms of the way he questions and scrutinises government. His election as leader has shown that he doesn’t have strong opposition across the party - Labour need a unity candidate and he gained majority support from all across the unions, membership, PLP and unlike Corbyn, has shown a capability to bring the different wings of the party together in his shadow Cabinet. He’s not tainted by close association to previous leaderships. The policies he has committed to are largely popular, but also Labour - nationalisation is the railways, universal free tuition fees, repealing the Tories’ trade union laws etc. He is also a serious politician, and with a PM who very much isn’t serious, he provides a credible challenge.
I’m not saying he will definitely win the next election. I am saying he is far better placed to do so than his rivals and predecessors.
I guess we probably disagree over the importance of charisma. I'd agree that as recently as 10-15 years ago it wasn't enough to be a deciding factor (important though it always was), but in our current media environment I honestly think that it's liable to be the deciding factor. The most charismatic of the leadership candidates, for me, was probably actually Nandy; RLB was no better than Starmer in that department. I'm picking up on it in relation to Starmer because he's the one everyone's convinced is electable.
I hope you're right about him. The last couple of pages of this thread probably make me look like I'm strongly opposed to him, but I'm actually not: I think time will tell in terms of his policies, and that who he picks in his shadow cabinet will be the first major sign of which direction he plans on taking. It wasn't a particularly easy choice to vote for RLB ahead of him: I hesitated before doing so, and in the end it was only really the green new deal that swung it. I hope that, as I think you suggested would happen earlier in the thread, the left of the party is now strong enough for the Labour party to emerge from the past few years significantly to the left of where it was before Corbyn. There is enough evidence from his past to suggest that that may well be the case, but I do worry about what compromises he's made to get so much enthusiastic support from the right of the party (saw Jim Murphy tweeting triumphantly about his win earlier - Jim fucking Murphy ffs). Like I said, time will tell, but I'm getting a bit of Miliband energy from him in the sense that I think he'd probably like to keep the party to the left but will be able to be convinced that he needs to move towards the centre.
I think the point on credibility is interesting. I agree that he'll be able to tear Johnson to shreds in a way that Corbyn couldn't, but I'm not convinced that that'll impact on public perception in the way you think it will. I could easily foresee a situation in which Starmer routinely DESTROYS Johnson with facts and logic only for Kuenssberg and co. to carry on parroting Tory party press releases in such a way that it has zero impact on the electorate. If anything, I worry that what you see as his credibility could count against him: that he looks so polished, speaks so well, and is a sir while Johnson is obviously a shambling buffoon could make it quite easy for the Tories to portray him as representing a morally bankrupt system while Johnson is an anti-system insurgent. The opposite is true, of course: Johnson is an Eton-educated career politician, while Starmer actually had a career outside politics. But I think that perception matters more than facts, particularly at a time when the Tories can actually credibly respond to Labour arguments about public spending by saying that they're already pumping money into the economy (which is a nonsense argument, of course, but a fairly easy one to make).
Like I said, I hope you're right about him and do think he'll probably do a better job as opposition leader than RLB would've done, while Nandy might've been as/more electable but would've been much more of a step to the right than Starmer. I guess I just feel a bit deflated about politics in general at the moment: I've felt energised by two political movements in my lifetime, and those were the yes movement in 2014 and Corbynism over the past few years. Starmer might be alright, but it's hard to feel energised by him in the same way, while socially reactionary voices seem to be becoming increasingly prominent in the yes movement. Just think everything looks pretty bleak just now.
This post was last modified: 04-04-2020, 02:11 PM by Shuto Makino.
Zizou
Drunk Cretin & Hassle Magnet
Billy Butcher
Posting Freak
Daily Express today:
'How much is Keir Starmer worth?'
'Starmer win to see Lib Dem pro-remain MERGER in Left Wing blow'
Here we go.
Zizou
Drunk Cretin & Hassle Magnet
Billy Butcher
Posting Freak
Wondered why 'Saville' was trending on Twitter... another anti-Starmer story about him declining to prosecute Saville when he was head of the CPS.
This will be constant everyday for weeks IMO, I hope Starmer knows how to deal with it.
Starmer was excellent on Marr. So refreshing to watch the Labour leader speak without worrying he’s going to say something stupid.
Morph, that’s unfair. It was to a large extent a smear, but there were huge failings in the leadership’s dealing with it, and you have to draw a line under it and try to move on as a new leader - people left the party over it and you have to win their trust back. It’s again a signal that he is far better than his predecessors and far more capable of leading an Opposition.
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