After the current clown, many of us would be perfectly happy with a boring PM.

For a Progressive Alliance to work Labour would need a hell lot more inspiring Leader than Starmer.

 

Not sure I buy that at all. Labour need a Leader who is willing to compromise and work with others, I think the current Leader would be open to that.

A progressive alliance isn't really necessary and is just tinkering around the edges of the First Past the Post system that's inherently flawed.

 

The Chesham election - and indeed the Hartlepool one - shows that when it is obvious who the leading anti-Tory contender is, the other parties are going to be squeezed anyway. Voters aren't stupid. And there is no guarantee that the 6% of Chesham or 5% of Hartlepool who voted for a non-Tory progressive would actually be willing to lend their vote for the contender - there's a reason why they stuck with voting for a no-hoper in the first place! It's far more likely that if there was only a Lib Dem on the ballot paper, or only a Labour candidate, then the minority who aren't willing to countenance voting for the contender would just stay at home.

 

Voters are also idiosyncratic and not every Lib Dem or Green voter would choose a different progressive to their preferred one over a Tory MP! You only have to look at Scottish council election preference rankings under STV to see that. Yes, the majority behave as you would expect, but these are the people who already tactically vote without a progressive alliance having been put in place.

Edited June 21, 20214 yr by Harve

The biggest problem with a non-aggression pact (as effectively happened in 1997) is that Labour has to be led by someone Lib Dem (and other) supporters are prepared to see as PM. Even left-leaning Lib Dem voters found it hard to vote for a Corbyn-led Labour party but they are far more likely to be prepared to vote for a Starmer-led one. Ed Davey's comments at the weekend were about as close as we are likely to get to a Lib Dem leader encouraging voters to vote Labour in an individual constituency.

The biggest problem with a non-aggression pact (as effectively happened in 1997) is that Labour has to be led by someone Lib Dem (and other) supporters are prepared to see as PM. Even left-leaning Lib Dem voters found it hard to vote for a Corbyn-led Labour party but they are far more likely to be prepared to vote for a Starmer-led one. Ed Davey's comments at the weekend were about as close as we are likely to get to a Lib Dem leader encouraging voters to vote Labour in an individual constituency.

 

I think there is potential in some seats, although usually when the Lib Dems do well, Labour do well too. But it's all pie in the sky stuff for the moment.

I think there is potential in some seats, although usually when the Lib Dems do well, Labour do well too. But it's all pie in the sky stuff for the moment.

The Lib Dems (and predecessor parties) tend to do better when Labour has a moderate leader who doesn't scare people away. The one exception really was 1983 when the chances of a Labour government were zero.

After the current clown, many of us would be perfectly happy with a boring PM.

 

And yet, Johnson's favourability ratings are demolishing Starmer's right now.

 

The problem with a boring leader is a lack of turnout, Blair and Cameron relied on charisma - if you're going to win from the centre you need some of that. If Starmer was a bit more appealing, Labour could be using, say, his career as Director of Crown Prosecutions to overturn Labour's weakness on crime and successfully argue for rehabilitation. He's just not present enough, though, so he can't do that.

 

You also don't need your base to start looking for other options while apparently not winning over anyone new.

And yet, Johnson's favourability ratings are demolishing Starmer's right now.

 

The problem with a boring leader is a lack of turnout, Blair and Cameron relied on charisma - if you're going to win from the centre you need some of that. If Starmer was a bit more appealing, Labour could be using, say, his career as Director of Crown Prosecutions to overturn Labour's weakness on crime and successfully argue for rehabilitation. He's just not present enough, though, so he can't do that.

 

You also don't need your base to start looking for other options while apparently not winning over anyone new.

 

I don't think anyone can argue that you need to be charismatic or have a USP but there is literally nobody in the Labour Party who has the same auroa as a Blair or even a Brown for example. And if they are, they are not getting good exposure. I don't think using Starmer's background as Director of Crown Prosecutions is a very good idea, it would be negligent. Firstly you'd have the Tommy Robinson brigade using it to stir up a culture war and secondly there have been some high profile cases in the media recently e.g Daniel Morgan. It would do far more harm than good.

 

As much as we don't like it it, unfortunately Johnson is a juggernaut. At least when he decides to go or the Tory Party themselves get twitchy feet, there's no-one like him in the wings.

Starmer's issue is he has a total lack of personality and at the moment I think that you need to be engaging and have some form of charisma to cut through. Yes there loads of other things as well, but for all of Boris' shite (and there is a huge heap of that) he unfortunately has a personality which has been built up for years since he was London Mayor.

 

I'd say the only Labour person who could potentially cut through at the moment is someone like Andy Burnham given the press he has had over the last year during the Pandemic. He is someone who seems to genuinely care, is engaging, passionate and seems up front and honest about things. I also can't really see Labour bringing back the North until it has some form of Northern, working class leader. Starmer may be a good speaker for the POV of his previous job etc, but he is dull and seemingly ineffectual. However given there has been a pandemic and the Tories have such a majority, it would be difficult for any leader to be able to do anything in Parliament right now.

 

Basically its a mess.

Edited June 22, 20214 yr by ElectroBoy

Andy Burnham is probably the only realistic candidate but it would take a long time for him to get elected as an MP and would probably want to cement his reputation as Mayor of Manchester for a few more years.

 

Starmer is an absolute disaster - the electorate find him extremely uncharismatic but also that he doesn't have any vision or believe in anything. Rather than uniting the Labour party he is purely focused on attacking the left and chasing "Red Wall" voters who aren't interested.

Rememebr: there IS a right wing alliance. They lie to the press about it not existing to throw Labour off, but it exists. They all use the same talkong points at the same time - currently all screaming about "cultural Marxism"????, whatever that is supposed to be - and they do deals in elections, just like last time, but keep it secret. The left and centre right must do the same.

True and a generalisation here slightly but Right wingers play dirty, break the rules and are completely ruthless - regard how people like Cummings can go from hero to zero in a flash. Whereas the left make sure they are being ultra fair, dot their i's and cross their t's and carry on losing. Some would say "They Go Low, We Go High" isn't working really.

 

I don't think anyone can argue that you need to be charismatic or have a USP but there is literally nobody in the Labour Party who has the same auroa as a Blair or even a Brown for example. And if they are, they are not getting good exposure. I don't think using Starmer's background as Director of Crown Prosecutions is a very good idea, it would be negligent. Firstly you'd have the Tommy Robinson brigade using it to stir up a culture war and secondly there have been some high profile cases in the media recently e.g Daniel Morgan. It would do far more harm than good.

 

As much as we don't like it it, unfortunately Johnson is a juggernaut. At least when he decides to go or the Tory Party themselves get twitchy feet, there's no-one like him in the wings.

The Daniel Morgan case has nothing to do with the DPP. Thanks to police corruption, the case never reached the CPS.

 

Of course, there was an earlier report on police corruption in the case which went to the man who was London's Police and Crime commissioner at the time. A chap called Johnson. Perhaps he would like to tell us what he did about it.

In the Batley and Spen doc that Owen Jones put out a lot of the constituents seemed to be in favour of Andy Burnham running for leader of the Labour Party.

 

IF Labour do lose that by-election (and it looks increasingly likely now that they will) then no question Keir has to resign or be challenged - it looks like the most likely challenger will be Angela Rayner should he refuse to resign and it's likely that he/those around him will refuse to do so with all the excuses already coming out nice and early.

I also can't really see Labour bringing back the North until it has some form of Northern, working class leader.

I'm not sure this is important when the Tories have had their biggest Northern successes in over 30 years under the leadership of someone who is the complete opposite of that. Angela Rayner has a story to tell and at the very least that can at least feed into a wider vision and narrative that is absent under Starmer, but I don't think it's necessary for every successful politician to have those attributes.

True and a generalisation here slightly but Right wingers play dirty, break the rules and are completely ruthless - regard how people like Cummings can go from hero to zero in a flash. Whereas the left make sure they are being ultra fair, dot their i's and cross their t's and carry on losing. Some would say "They Go Low, We Go High" isn't working really.

 

Yeh and Labour are held to a higher standard by a biased press imo! Look how much footage following Hartlepool compared to the by election last week which has already been forgotten about.

Nobody cares but me - however if Batley and Spen does end up going to the Conservatives, the last time that a governing party has won 2 by-elections (previously not held by them) in the same Parliament was by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929.. one of which was a defection from the Liberals and other completely uncontested in a seat won previously by a (by that point, defunct) Irish Parliamentary MP.

 

So basically this would be unprecedented!

Nobody cares but me - however if Batley and Spen does end up going to the Conservatives, the last time that a governing party has won 2 by-elections in the same Parliament was by Ramsay MacDonald in 1929.. one of which was a defection from the Liberals and other completely uncontested in a seat won previously by a (by that point, defunct) Irish Parliamentary MP.

 

So basically this would be unprecedented!

 

I know the Irish seat your talking about - in Liverpool! Always found it fascinating they continued to election him for 11 years after that particular party ceased to exist :lol:

 

Rayner would be good as a caretaker and put some oomph in it. Nandy would be ok too.

Johnson having a right go at the Liberals today regarding planning at PMQs!