Rayvin

I think they thought they could call his bluff and prove that deep down, all politicians are the same. He needs to stick to his guns on this now, leave the public in no doubt who the liars are.

Beyond just electoral reform, I would love to see a political party of any stripe concern itself with long term planning for the future. I know it's not a vote winner in the here and now, but as a society it's completely what we should be trying to keep in focus. Climate change is a very obvious example of something that needs more serious effort than it has received, but I am constantly angered by that example of Rishi Sunak denying the Education department £15bn to help those children who have fallen behind under the pandemic, despite being told that the cost of not providing it was something like £300bn in the longer term. "Not my problem" needs removing from all political mentalities.

I suppose I accept it too in a way - I don't think we'll rejoin the EU short of some incredible event like a full scale invasion of the continent by Russia - I'm just not prepared to pretend it's not actively fucking us so that the blind can sleep better at night. That's a good point you make though about England being alone and surrounded by the EU though, who knows the impact of that over time. If we don't get electoral reform before Scotland goes, I don't think we'll ever get it. Frankly I don't think we'll get any left of centre party in power again should that happen.

Although as I've said before, if they put electoral reform back on the radar then that would motivate me to cross the line.

I think at this point I wouldn't say I want Labour to change like some kind of hostile takeover, I simply have to stand apart from them so that they understand the consequence of what they have chosen, in the hope that one day, that is sufficient to form part of a wider conversation about how we move back to sanity. By endorsing their current policies on Brexit, all I am telling them is that they can take my vote for granted while wooing the feckless. They can't take my vote for granted, and that message is sent even if I'm completely irrelevant in the overall scheme of things. They ceased to be 'my party' at that moment, and are now simply the 'better than the Tories' party. They can change, or not, if they like.

I think that's a fair assessment. And yes, it's a truly dismal state of affairs.

Do you mean me specifically? I know I'm not getting what I want, I said as much several posts back. This discussion isn't about Europe on my end, Labour aren't ready to tackle that issue because they still believe that they can create a broad church between racist halfwits and urban intellectuals. The labour front bench is indeed bereft but I'm far more confident that the centre left has a higher number of credible up and comers than the Tories do. And I think mentoring them in could be something Cooper, or someone like her, could achieve.

I'm going to stress incidentally that in my view, even if Starmer has broken the rules (which as far as I can tell he has not), it still wouldn't be as bad as the man who wrote and signed off on the damn rules breaching them. That's not how it'll play out though.

That is exactly my feeling on it. And why I'm keen to express that losing Starmer here, to this, isn't as big a deal as we might think. Starmer resigning would be a body blow to Johnson, and it's not like the guy is irreplaceable.

Apologies, so you're saying it never should have happened to any of them. Fair, I'll accept the consistency of that position. I'm not sure where I fall on it. I understand that the centrists within Labour felt moved to tear down Corbyn early on in order to avoid catastrophe, but then I also think they have to accept others doing it to their own sacred cows, especially after years of terrible judgement in this respect. Although to be clear, I'm not trying to tear Starmer down - I just think he's probably the least relevant leader that Labour have had in (my) living memory. The fact that they may win even with this is testament to how badly things are going for the Tories. But on that basis, I don't see how losing him would be a big blow. As Ewerk has just posted, the Tories are now going to attempt to drag him into the muck with them. Most people aren't going to pick up the nuance in that story, they'll just see the double standard - which as we all know, is why it's running. The water will be successfully muddied, future revelations about Johnson will lose their impact, and the polls will reflect this and will narrow. People will become disillusioned and start parroting "they're all the same" style schtick, and Labour has a harder job getting them out to vote. I feel that he needs more than what he's showing, but maybe as Renton says, he'll light the stage up in the run in.

I'm simply saying that the party judged him and tried to have him removed before he had a chance to prove himself at a GE. It's just a fact, not a debate.

It's possible, and I hope you're right, but either way Labour need to have their own vision for how to move forward. If you see this as Starmer steadying the ship before handing over to someone waiting in the wings who is going to cement the party in power and lock out the Tories then fair enough. To go back to where we started though, I still don't think Starmer himself is delivering something here that anyone else mentioned in this conversation around who should take over, wouldn't be capable of.

Corbyn was hounded and attacked by his own party well before that though. If memory serves he was targeted by a coup within his first year? That's the point really, he was judged as unelectable well before he had a chance to do anything, so Starmer shouldn't expect anything different.

I actually do believe that Labour can and dare I say it, will win the next election. So much has gone wrong for Johnson that I can actually see it happening. However, that provides an opportunity for the Tories to purge all the Johnsonite cabal and reorganise themselves around something new, while giving them the opportunity to spread the blame for Brexit and the cost of living to Labour, thus diluting the effectiveness of those components as part of a Labour offensive in future. With Scotland likely to fuck off and the electoral boundaries and system being what they are, we may simply not get another chance to fix any of this in most of our lifetimes. Is Starmer the last, best hope we have? I mean really?

Not sure about this one - Corbyn (Miliband too come to think of it) never had this luxury.

Not Starmer, that much is clear. Before the discussion is reframed, let's just make sure we are standing where we started - I believe that he has done very little to contribute to Labour's success in the polls and am very concerned that the first serious Tory leader he comes up against will flatten him. The narrative I was arguing against on here was that he was somehow doing this amazing job - now I'm seeing "well who else would we have?" That's not the point I was making, I simply said -beyond my support for Cooper - that he has done very little at all to make me think he'd be a great loss were he to be replaced. At worst we'd stand still.

Who agreed that was his one job? I didn't vote for him for that. That was obviously part of the plan but it wasn't by any stretch the reason he was voted for. He was made leader by the remain wing of Labour membership - who he promptly abandoned, for reasons we all know and have discussed before.

Am I the only one who can remember a few months ago when we were all lamenting how the British public just would not budge on the Tories at 40-43%..? Partygate has given him this lead, not contributed to it, delivered it.

I agree actually it's unfair of me to put all that at Starmers feet since the whole fucking party is blind to it. But he's not going to do it and it makes me keen to just move him on and try the next one until we finally end up with a leader who can do what needs to be done. And a leader with some charisma, to use CTs word, could indeed manage this. Johnson got Brexit over the line with nothing but charisma and waffle, we live in a brave new world where anything is possible, apparently. I have no expectation of anyone in Labour doing anything differently regarding Brexit incidentally - I don't believe his advisors are as shit hot as you think they are, but they're too far down the path now to change it. It remains my line in the sand but its not really part of my thinking in this discussion.

No, I'm asking you, what has he done that makes you think he's such a good leader? I think we all agree here on the facts of this - He's done basically nothing and Johnson has hung himself, but that this is a correct way of playing it. What has he said or done that makes you think he'll set Labour up for a decade plus in power? Which is what we need btw, 5 years before a more competent Tory leader reorganises their party and beats him at his own game (not hard to do when you consider all the economic mess that Labour will have to sort out and get blamed for) isn't the sort of answer we need to this. Starmer should be entirely about making it so that the Tories never get power again. Electoral reform, press standards, safeguarding institutions, maybe even a constitution. He will do none of these things because he is somehow delusional enough to imagine that if he wins this GE, it will be because Labour were attractive rather than the Tories were horrific.

I'm not saying he isn't, but I am saying that what he has done could have been done by literally anyone and that giving him credit for it is premature. I am gravely concerned that when he actually has to win on his own, he's going to reveal that there is no underlying substance to his platform.

I think the times are stranger than the leader is meaningful and I'd have a very hard time believing otherwise. Labour were nowhere near the Tories until around Christmas when one of the various scandals to have flared up under Johnson, maybe it was the start of partygate, flared up. That suddenly surged Labour forward. The only credit you could possibly give Starmer for that is that he hadn't managed to fuck his party the same way Johnson had. Except now we discover, unjustly or otherwise, that he's caught up in the same nonsense. Go back to before partygate and Labour were a solid 6 to 8 points behind. Johnson is the one who is deciding the next election, not Starmer. He's barely even said anything man, what is it you think he's actually done other than keeping his head down?

If the "usual suspects" are "the left" I'm not sure who Starmer appeals to that Cooper doesn't. Don't think the anti-Blairite left like him any more than they like her given his lies to them. Him going and Cooper coming in might actually provide the chance for a clean slate for winning some of them back while still remaining on target. I'm also having a hard time imagining she'd be grovelling to the Brexiteers to the same degree as he has. In fact I'm having a hard time imagining she would have put up with anywhere near as much of Johnson's shit as Starmer has. Starmer is a very poor answer to the predicament we find ourselves in, honestly. His entire platform is based on just letting Johnson hang himself. I sincerely hope he has something more beyond that but I doubt there's anything that will cement a new Labour dynasty. While I don't agree with her on everything, last time she was on the ballot for leader I was going to back Cooper until swayed by Labour's pathetic and dismal support of austerity forced me to Corbyn.

So we lose 5-0 to City, as expected, and noises about not being mathematically safe resurface, along with the whole squad needing an urgent overhaul and Howe being shipped. Let's be real lads, we're not going to be the City overnight - we're just going to start to try to compete. They'll aim for top ten next season not Europe. And tbh, we could probably get top ten with these players and Howe for a full season.