The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[edwin_m]

The Bank of England had to intervene to stabilise collapsing pension funds and restore market function, not to overrule democracy.

I would argue Truss's policies weren't even democratic. They weren't in any manifesto except perhaps the one put to an electorate of about 0.2% of the voting population in a Tory leadership contest.

 

[Yew]

Yet there's plenty of people calling Labour communists and criticising their tax policies and regulatory policies for being too left wing and too anti-business.

Just because those on the right are calling something "communist" does not mean it is, they're just using it as a slur against anything to the left of their views.

 

[DarloRich]

The last labour Pm to get involved in a middle Eastern was is apparently a war criminal.

The current labour PM is a coward for not getting into a middle eastern war

How does that work?

 

[brad465]

The last labour Pm to get involved in a middle Eastern was is apparently a war criminal.

The current labour PM is a coward for not getting into a middle eastern war

How does that work?

Deeply entrenched tribalism.

 

[Bevan Price]

If you want services - like NHS, Education, Defence, etc., then they have to be paid for -- and inevitably that means some form of taxation. There is a choice - who pays more and who pays less - the "average" worker - the "wealthy" - or "business" ?

Now the "wealthy" and "business" always seemed to get the best treatment from the Tories, and I suspect Reform would behave similarly. Whilst far from perfect, I think the "average" worker is always going to get the most favourable treatment from Labour. Nobody likes higher taxes - but I repeat - someone has to pay if we want good "services". Turning away from Labour to the far right will bring nothing but sorrow.

 

[Tetchytyke]

So what, that's like boasting when a football team scores 5 in a match, but loses 6-5, Corbyn still lost the election.

UK General Elections are not about how many votes you get, but how many seats you win, Corbyn won 202 seats which was one of the worst Labour results this side of World War 2, he also lost Labour heartland seats in areas like County Durham, Corbyn is not a leader but a professional protester.

This is the fundamental problem with our voting system though.

Unless you live in one of about 50-75 or so constituencies, your vote simply doesn't matter. Go and vote or stay at home, the effect is the same.

Corbyn was very good at stacking up the votes in places where he would have won anyway. But, because of the electoral system, those votes are worthless. He was less good at getting votes in the Middle England marginal constituencies where those votes have an oversized influence.

The problem, though, is that our voting system is now the cause of all the political instability. Johnson won an election with a huge majority but his mandate was a mile wide and an inch deep. Starmer is now in the same position, a huge majority but a mandate which is also a mile wide and an inch deep. Whilst they both had massive majorities, neither Johnson nor Starmer have or had the political capital that means they can actually use the majority and ride out the political backbiting.

Johnson gained one percentage point of vote share on what May achieved, but it gave him a huge majority. Starmer also only put one percentage point on vote share on what Corbyn achieved. Neither had or have the public support their majorities suggest.

We have a Prime Minister with a stonking great majority but where 65% of the people who voted actually voted for someone else. No wonder we have such instability.

 

[Grimsby town]

Just because those on the right are calling something "communist" does not mean it is, they're just using it as a slur against anything to the left of their views.

Its definitely nowhere near communism but there's clearly been a leftward shift in policy compared to the Tories. The shift has been larger in some areas than others but I can't think of a policy area where there hasn't been a shift to the left.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The shift has been larger in some areas than others but I can't think of a policy area where there hasn't been a shift to the left.

Whereas I can’t think of a policy area where there has been a shift to the left.

This is perhaps the issue that Starmer has right now. People on the right seem to believe he’s some sort of socialist, as we saw with the right wing protests about Starmer in Bristol last month.

However, people on the left think he’s just another Diet Tory, as we saw with the left wing counter-protests in Bristol. Those left wing counter-protests had the title “We hate Starmer more than you do”.

 

[AlterEgo]

Its definitely nowhere near communism but there's clearly been a leftward shift in policy compared to the Tories. The shift has been larger in some areas than others but I can't think of a policy area where there hasn't been a shift to the left.

Asylum and immigration is one very obvious area where there has been a rightward shift.

 

[JamieL]

Whereas I can’t think of a policy area where there has been a shift to the left.

This is perhaps the issue that Starmer has right now. People on the right seem to believe he’s some sort of socialist, as we saw with the right wing protests about Starmer in Bristol last month.

Tax and welfare policy are two very clear examples where Starmer has been forced to the left.

 

[edwin_m]

Tax and welfare policy are two very clear examples where Starmer has been forced to the left.

I'd say he's gone left on economic policy and kept straight on or gone right with social policies. This fits with their apparent view that the next election will be won or lost by traditionally Labour supporters in the former "Red Wall" who are considered to be socially conservative and now incline towards Reform. However, with the Greens now siphoning off the more socially liberal voters he may now have to rely on a coalition with them and/or the LibDems to keep Reform out in 2028 - and FPTP makes the outcome of a multi-way vote split dangerously unpredictable.

I recall suggesting on here just after the 2024 election that Starmer should move quickly to get electoral reform onto the agenda while his political capital was high, but unfortunately he didn't and if he tries it now it will just look like opportunism.

 

[DarloRich]

This fits with their apparent view that the next election will be won or lost by traditionally Labour supporters in the former "Red Wall" who are considered to be socially conservative and now incline towards Reform

It absolutely will be. Come and have a trip around the north eat and listen to what people actually say.

However, with the Greens now siphoning off the more socially liberal voters he may now have to rely on a coalition

The greens will collapse under the weight of the contradictions and closer inspection. Same as Clownbyn. The won the recent by election as a stop reform vote I suspect rather than in any allegiance to thier policy agenda!

( Reform would be the same if they ever got proper scrutiny!)

 

[edwin_m]

The won the recent by election as a stop reform vote I suspect rather than in any allegiance to thier policy agenda!

A combination of that, a candidate who seemed very personable, but also dissatisfaction with Labour. I consider stopping Reform to be the most important thing, even if that results in the Greens sharing power. But I'm torn about whether I want them to stay popular to provide an anti-Reform alternative, or if that happens they will just split the anti-Reform vote and let them in.

 

[ainsworth74]

It absolutely will be. Come and have a trip around the north eat and listen to what people actually say.

It remains utterly frustrating though that my fellows don't seem to be able to see that they're electing a bunch of shysters who might say what they want on social issues, immigration and similar but are going to gut the services that they care about and what to see improved. I don't know what the answer is. But as I've noted before the vote for Reform remains, fundamentally, a scream into the void for someone to make the bad things stop and make people feel better about their areas and their lives (and their children's/grand-children's lives).

Labour could do a lot worse than going big on comparatively small things that could at least shift the vibes a little bit (whilst waiting for the big things to take effect). Fix all the sodding potholes and tidy places up and make them look less worn down and drab. And yes, they are somewhat alive to that (as they have schemes to do just that) but my god we're two years in and potholes are rife and local areas still rundown and shabby.

Just do something to make things feel less awful and hopeless. Instead we're given a diet of flipflopping, right-wing policies, and general uselessness.

The greens will collapse under the weight of the contradictions and closer inspection.

Until they can come up with a coherent and persuasive answer on defence, security and international relations they'll always struggle. It was a while ago now (almost feels like an eon) but I listed to Polanski being interviewed by Lewis Goodall on the News Agents. He was quite a persuasive figure, I didn't agree with everything he was saying but there was some stuff I agreed with and other I agreed that it was an issue but perhaps not on his remedy. But when Goodall started asking him about defence and security issues it just fell apart.

There's other issues as well of course with the current party platform. But that's a big big sticking point.

 

[DarloRich]

I consider stopping Reform to be the most important thing, even if that results in the Greens sharing power.

agree - I suspect that is what happened in the recent by election. lets see the result next time around. Easy to vote for the protest party on a one off or limited by election basis but at the general election................

( How labour have allowed this worst government/POM ever narrative to get hold is maddening. I mean Truss! )

 

[Tetchytyke]

Tax and welfare policy are two very clear examples where Starmer has been forced to the left.

No, he's just ploughed straight on with whatever the Tories had already proposed. He's changed nothing.

Unless you think that withdrawing certain benefits from pensioners is left wing?

 

[DarloRich]

But as I've noted before the vote for Reform remains, fundamentally, a scream into the void for someone to make the bad things stop and make people feel better about their areas and their lives (and their children's/grand-children's lives).

Agreed - the problem is Reform wont fix anything. Well, other than thier own bank balances............

Labour could do a lot worse than going big on comparatively small things that could at least shift the vibes a little bit (whilst waiting for the big things to take effect). Fix all the sodding potholes and tidy places up and make them look less worn down and drab. And yes, they are somewhat alive to that (as they have schemes to do just that) but my god we're two years in and potholes are rife and local areas still rundown and shabby.

I agree

Just do something to make things feel less awful and hopeless. Instead we're given a diet of flipflopping, right-wing policies, and general uselessness.

Things are happening but they just aren't getting the coverage. Starmer and Labour desperately need the rebuttal unit run during the Blair years. They have got to get on the front foot and fight the nonsense.

The problem is, as I think we both know, those alleged right wing polices ARE popular in the places labour want them to be popular. Go for a drink before the match or down the town and listen to what people are saying. I was in Darlo this weekend and went for a few pints with some mates. The chat in the background of the lower class hostelries was crazy. Total Reform taking point stuff and worse!

But when Goodall started asking him about defence and security issues it just fell apart.

Agree - same as Corbyn

Unless you think that withdrawing certain benefits from pensioners is left wing?

I think targeting the benefit to those who need it most is fairly left wing!

 

[Cowley]

agree - I suspect that is what happened in the recent by election. lets see the result next time around. Easy to vote for the protest party on a one off or limited by election basis but at the general election................

( How labour have allowed this worst government/POM ever narrative to get hold is maddening. I mean Truss! )

I do feel like we’re living in an era where everyone expects too much from the government. With algorithms boosting exactly what you think straight into your brain and confirmation bias making people miss that all of governing is a compromise one way or the other.

If it wasn’t Labour finding things fairly impossible it would be someone else.

That said, their messaging has been appalling and even though they actually have done some good things (I would say more in the last two years than the previous lot did in the two years before that), they give off the energy of a rainy afternoon in a semi derelict post war shopping arcade. There’s just no optimism whatsoever.

I think Starmer would have made a good foreign secretary. But you need a bit of something that he doesn’t possess to lead the country in this day and age.

 

[JamesT]

No, he's just ploughed straight on with whatever the Tories had already proposed. He's changed nothing.

Unless you think that withdrawing certain benefits from pensioners is left wing?

Removing the two child benefit cap? Increased government spending to go along with the increased taxes?

 

[brad465]

It remains utterly frustrating though that my fellows don't seem to be able to see that they're electing a bunch of shysters who might say what they want on social issues, immigration and similar but are going to gut the services that they care about and what to see improved. I don't know what the answer is. But as I've noted before the vote for Reform remains, fundamentally, a scream into the void for someone to make the bad things stop and make people feel better about their areas and their lives (and their children's/grand-children's lives).

Labour could do a lot worse than going big on comparatively small things that could at least shift the vibes a little bit (whilst waiting for the big things to take effect). Fix all the sodding potholes and tidy places up and make them look less worn down and drab. And yes, they are somewhat alive to that (as they have schemes to do just that) but my god we're two years in and potholes are rife and local areas still rundown and shabby.

Just do something to make things feel less awful and hopeless. Instead we're given a diet of flipflopping, right-wing policies, and general uselessness.

Until they can come up with a coherent and persuasive answer on defence, security and international relations they'll always struggle. It was a while ago now (almost feels like an eon) but I listed to Polanski being interviewed by Lewis Goodall on the News Agents. He was quite a persuasive figure, I didn't agree with everything he was saying but there was some stuff I agreed with and other I agreed that it was an issue but perhaps not on his remedy. But when Goodall started asking him about defence and security issues it just fell apart.

There's other issues as well of course with the current party platform. But that's a big big sticking point.

While no two Green parties across Europe will ever be the same, the German Greens are much more hawkish on foreign policy. I think they would benefit from PR voting not just as a way of gaining more seats, but if they want to be part of a coalition, they will have to improve their position on key issues in coalition negotiations; at the moment they and other small parties with no realistic chance of governing can come up with crank positions, knowing they'll never have to deliver them. This is visible in how the German Greens are more moderate than in the UK, and have been in coalitions as a result.

 

[DarloRich]

If it wasn’t Labour finding things fairly impossible it would be someone else.

Labour also have an extremely, erm, partisan press and social media to combat. I doubt Johnson/Brexit/Reform would face the same.

But you need a bit of something that he doesn’t possess to lead the country in this day and age.

I don't know - I think we have lost sight of what PM's usually are: Quite boring, solid, decent people. The problem is we have had Johnson and Truss and a biased press desperate for Farage to take power to drive that message.

Stamer is a boring, solid lawyer. He isn't a paper thin showman like Johnson, an incompetent like Truss or an over promoted school swat/monitor/rich boy like Sunak who had no idea how real people live!

That said, their messaging has been appalling and even though they actually have done some good things (I would say more in the last two years than the previous lot did in the two years before that), they give off the energy of a rainy afternoon in a semi derelict post war shopping arcade. There’s just no optimism whatsoever.

I WISH they would start throwing some metaphorical media punches. Get on the front foot and start swinging.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The won the recent by election as a stop reform vote I suspect rather than in any allegiance to thier policy agenda!

But Labour are also in the camp of "stop Reform" yet their vote collapsed.

I think Green probably is a protest vote, but I think Labour would be extremely unwise to dismiss it as just a protest vote. The Greens got two million votes in 2024 and won four seats.

The problem is, as I think we both know, those alleged right wing polices ARE popular in the places labour want them to be popular. Go for a drink before the match or down the town and listen to what people are saying.

The problem is rather more fundamental than that. Places like Bishop Auckland or Easington have populations who are less educated than average, have lower incomes than average, and have lower employment rates than average. Bishop Auckland and Easington are both 99% white.

This sets it out nicely: https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Bishop+Auckland

(Sorry, its a big table which won't copy easily.)

It has become a chicken-and-egg situation with these places. Anyone with higher education and higher levels of ambition went off to the bright lights of the big city a long time ago. The people left behind are therefore, in general, less educated, less wealthy, and less diverse. They do love their far right policies, but the reasons why they love far right policies are largely the same reasons why there are no jobs in places like Bishop Auckland or Easington.

I genuinely don't know where we go from here. Pandering to uneducated racists isn't what a governing party should be doing, it really is the tail wagging the dog. But if they don't then they won't be a governing party for very long.

I do feel like we’re living in an era where everyone expects too much from the government. With algorithms boosting exactly what you think straight into your brain and confirmation bias making people miss that all of governing is a compromise one way or the other.

Whilst I agree with this, I sincerely believe that the issue now is our voting system.

The fact that Labour won such a big majority with such a small share of the vote is a large part of the reason why Labour have so quickly become so very disliked. 65% of the people who went out to vote actually voted for someone else. They're not going to be understanding of this government because, quite simply, they didn't want this government.

No voting system is perfect, there is a real risk with proportional representation that the extremist parties become king-makers, as we have seen in Israel and the Netherlands.

But we've not had a government obtain a majority of the public vote since the Conservatives got 53% of the vote in 1935. Winner-takes-it-all just leaves a majority of the population dissatisfied with the government. 1983 and the 'longest suicide note in history' still resulted in the Conservatives' vote share decreasing, its just that the Labour and SDP/Liberals took votes off each other and Thatcher went round the outside. Same in 2017.

I think the age of social media is meaning that we are now starting to see those chickens come home to roost. People can now see exactly how few people support the winning parties and they don't see why they should go along with it.

 

[edwin_m]

No voting system is perfect, there is a real risk with proportional representation that the extremist parties become king-makers, as we have seen in Israel and the Netherlands.

But we've not had a government obtain a majority of the public vote since the Conservatives got 53% of the vote in 1935. Winner-takes-it-all just leaves a majority of the population dissatisfied with the government. 1983 and the 'longest suicide note in history' still resulted in the Conservatives' vote share decreasing, its just that the Labour and SDP/Liberals took votes off each other and Thatcher went round the outside. Same in 2017.

However, as we saw with Brexit, under FPTP it's possible for a small faction to gain influence by threatening to split the voter base of a larger party.

The vote share of the 2010 coalition government was over 50%, which kind of makes your point about vote share of single-party governments.

 

[Sorcerer]

I don't know - I think we have lost sight of what PM's usually are: Quite boring, solid, decent people. The problem is we have had Johnson and Truss and a biased press desperate for Farage to take power to drive that message.

Stamer is a boring, solid lawyer. He isn't a paper thin showman like Johnson, an incompetent like Truss or an over promoted school swat/monitor/rich boy like Sunak who had no idea how real people live!

My understanding is that Clement Attlee was also considered a rather boring individual (further research needed) but within a few years he was able to deliver radical reforms including the welfare state and NHS. If you don't have the charisma, you can make up for it with the competence. Starmer unfortunately has neither. He is a very much a Will McKenzie figure who would be fine working within the confines of the status quo but is demonstrably out of his depth when trying to lead a country that isn't content with it. Can anyone actually say with confidence what he stands for, what his goals are and who his voting base is?

 

[Purple Train]

I do wonder if we'll ever have another long term Prime Minister. The state of the traditional media and more importantly social media these days seems to mean unrelenting negative publicity and reputations being trashed regardless of who is in power.

I do think that two PMs in particular were unfairly treated. These are Gordon Brown and Theresa May. While I am of the left-leaning persuasion, and not a Tory, I think what these two had in common is neither did anything that terrible, yet both were endlessly pilloried. Indeed, I would rate Brown as the PM I dislike the least (Thatcher onwards).

(Both copied from the Reform UK thread to avoid drifting off topic.)

I agree with @nw1's analysis as quoted on both counts. I think the point about a long-term PM (or lack of) is rather interesting: both May and Brown, hounded though they were, managed three years in post, while Starmer hasn't even cracked two. I'm too young to remember the minutiae of the media treatment of May and Brown, but I don't recall them being so comprehensively attacked on different grounds by both major ideological tribes in the same way as Starmer is decried as a rampant, greedy socialist by the right and as a cowardly, hateful Reform sympathiser by the left. And obviously I by no means think he's perfect, but the lack of joined-up thinking in this regard suddenly makes the HS2 débâcle make more sense...

 

[Sorcerer]

I'm too young to remember the minutiae of the media treatment of May and Brown, but I don't recall them being so comprehensively attacked on different grounds by both major ideological tribes in the same way as Starmer is decried as a rampant, greedy socialist by the right and as a cowardly, hateful Reform sympathiser by the left. And obviously I by no means think he's perfect, but the lack of joined-up thinking in this regard suddenly makes the HS2 débâcle make more sense...

Theresa May was pretty popular until the election campaign, then things started to fall apart. For what it's worth she was in an almost unwinnable situation trying to navigate leaving the EU despite being in favour of remaining and also trying to lead a party that was split into Eurosceptic and Pro-European factions. But that said I seem to remember her still being a preferred option by the press, though I put this down more to being anti-Corbyn than pro-May.

Today it's simply a case of Starmer being the leader of an unpopular government because of things like multiple U-turns, unpopular policies, and the fact that it hardly any support in the first place. Even Alexander Boris Johnson, as woefully incompetent as he was, still had a support base willing to defend him. Starmer is just universally disliked by nearly everyone on the spectrum.

 

[Topological]

This should have been a government coming in with a vision, a massive majority and a chance to change. With the poor economic situation, there was huge amount of wriggle room should things go wrong.

Instead it is all about how bad things are and negativity drives the agenda. It is a loop of worsening forecasts, dampening outcomes and voids where the vision should be.

 

[martin butler]

This should have been a government coming in with a vision, a massive majority and a chance to change. With the poor economic situation, there was huge amount of wriggle room should things go wrong.

Instead it is all about how bad things are and negativity drives the agenda. It is a loop of worsening forecasts, dampening outcomes and voids where the vision should be.

Starmer is a steady boring capable PM, and that's not what people wanted, see, it may have been OK, in opposition, if fact, it's a good thing to be seen as competent, whilst the government are in chaos around you, but boring dependable, does not make headlines, and that's the problem.

We live in a world where media rules everything, news cycles, and how your perceived make or break you, people want spectacle, plus add in the editorial bias, and its easy to see why we have government by news flash, gaining attention, and clicks, is more important it would seem to be, than having a steady boring government.

 

[Topological]

Being competent would be excellent.

Starmer's problem is that either he, or his team, are not competent. That is why we get all the U-turns.

People would accept a vision. A vision is not short-termist headline grabbing, it is a clear narrative that the government aligns with. That is what the UK lacks. What is it that the government are doing?

 

[brad465]

Being competent would be excellent.

Starmer's problem is that either he, or his team, are not competent. That is why we get all the U-turns.

He is partly incompetent, his team are extremely incompetent (although getting rid of McSweeney has lessened the latter). On the world stage Starmer has done well, including, for now, actually not kissing Trump's behind on Iran, which suggests his foreign policy team is more competent than his domestic business team.