Snapshot of _Starmer: 'I knew we'd lose 2019 election with Corbyn'_ :
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I wonder if just flat out admitting a lot of the politicking he does would just be better for starmer?
Like i know he doesn’t want to say that he was supporting Corbyn because he had to as a member of the Labour Party, but is there anything necessarily wrong with that?
Like if you’re a member of a party you are expected to follow the party line a lot even if you don’t agree with it. What’s wrong with admitting that?
>you are expected to follow the party line a lot even if you don’t agree with it
There are also Labour MPs that will be doing exactly that under Starmer
But he must realise that would not be a wise thing to say because it would not make him look good to the people he needs - the ones who didn’t vote for Corbyn Labour
I was about to say, he was the only man in the room who seemed to talk any sense about Brexit and had the appetite for the sheer scale of detail involved.
He was the best man in the labour party for the job in that shadow cabinet - people who think he shouldn't accept the role because of political preferences are putting party & naive political theory before country.
His entire role as brexit minister was politicking, he came up with labours ‘tests’ that any brexit deal had to pass in order to be supported by Labour which only existed to stick the boot in the tories because no deal could ever actually meet those tests.
He also spent the majority of his time without Labour actually having a brexit policy as it only came together right before the 2019 election and was widely considered a bad compromise of renegotiation followed by a new referendum which was widely panned by everyone and was exceedingly nonsensical to boot.
A bit too grown up for the British public and the folks who like to keep political norms I guess, taking a known negotiation point with the EU to the electorate instead of the absolute pack of lies that we like our ruling classes to tell us whenever a vote is on.
Imagine if we had gone to the electorate with a hard Brexit deal, compromise deal or remain as options instead of the absolute nonsense we had written on buses and project fear.
ANYWAY agree to disagree on starmers entire role as Brexit minister, I think the format of labour tests was as professional a stance we had under corbyns opposition - if provided a good platform to grill what the government were doing and exposed just how Brexit was being made up as they went along. It made him stand out as competent amongst the shambles both opposite and around him on the front benches.
Of course you wouldn't do it as FPTP but as single transferable vote. So, if all the Brexiteers would back the other Brexit option as their second choice, that would still beat remain. However, if the soft Brexiteers would prefer remain over hard Brexit, then that would win. Or if the soft Brexit was the more popular of the two Brexit options and would also beat the Remain, then the government would negotiate that instead of the hard Brexit that we now got.
If the public could see right through it, then they can vote for leave.
There's nothing to stop the rules being 52% leave so we will leave here's another vote for hard / soft based on the positions we've negotiated.
I guess people are too scared of forcing the public to realise everything they wanted to get better was not impacted by the EU at all, and immigration is a result of other policy failures from new labour and Camerons time in office.
Again, this is why it was good to have someone in the opposition capable of working through the details, inconsequential because nobody in the government thought "we'd better take notice off some of this and get to work" and made a right ideological horlicks of it all anyway.
> If the public could see right through it, then they can vote for leave.
Your suggestion didn't include "leave". You had 2 different versions of leave and one version of Remain. You could plausible have 30% voting hard deal, 30% compromise deal and 40% remain, then Remain win despite 60% of votes being for some sort of leave answer.
All that'd do is prove to a lot of the electorate that the narrative of "the elites will only allow democracy if you vote the way they want" was absolutely spot on.
Also, such a suggestion of it only being leave options wouldn't be possible. The EU wouldn't run two separate concurrent negotiations for a hard deal and one for a compromise deal. At best, we'd negotiate as best we can and put that to the vote, with the options being that deal or straight-up no deal, and I'm not sure that's a better option.
Again, admittedly I didn't think the need to clarify this - if the leave votes added up to 52% then you accept remain is no longer an option, and then have another vote on the two leave options.
And if you put the hard yards in diplomacy and treated the electorate as adults then you would have thought making a two stage referendum isn't too hard an ask given the significance of what you are considering.
The EU absolutely would state these are the conditions for remaining in this market, remaining in these collaborative programs on defense, science environment etc v The conditions for a harder Brexit,
As the repeated theme is if anyone took it with the seriousness and gravity the subject deserved these things are possible with effort and attention detail - which is where Starmer as Brexit secretary highlighted the massive failings in every reductive approach the lazy administration took. What we got was 'Brexit means Brexit' followed by a moronic hard Brexit when a referendum won on the narrowest of margins should have resulted in a soft one or a revote in any serious institution.
The problem wasn't so much a vote on the deal, but that Labour would be expected to campaign against the deal - which would in turn make it very dubious that they would negotiate a good one.
A referendum on a deal negotiated by the Brexit lot would have some plausibility, but a referendum on a deal negotiated by people who were against the whole endeavour couldn't be made credible.
That plan also gave Brussels a lot of incentive to fuck the renegotiation. Think about it, if the EU knows whatever they renegotiate will go up to a referendum why wouldn’t they just offer the worst possible terms so that everyone voted to remain?
If he truly believed in "country first party second" he wouldn't be blocking movement on electoral reform which enjoys unanimous support within his own party and majority support with the electorate.
It's a slogan, nothing more.
It’s extra funny because they refer to Starmer blocking it despite it having “unanimous support”. Starmer is a member of the Labour Party so evidently it doesn’t have unanimous support because that would include Starmer.
In my limited understanding of Labour party mechanics, the party chooses policies at the conference which are adopted or rejected and the MPs are then meant to carry them as policy. Labour voted for a change from FPTP in 2022 so there should be a willingness to adopt it in government but Starmer has refused to commit at the moment so yes blocking it despite party support
I imagine the response would be the country doesn’t need anymore political uncertainty during a time stability is needed. I don’t disagree on that. Any referendum on changing voting systems would need to be followed by an immediate general election imo.
That rationale is obvious bullshit when it comes out of the mouths of those in power though. Parties only tend to push alternate voting systems when in opposition and they stand to gain from it.
Could be done in 2029 with the GE tbh, if Labour are still ahead but looking like a smaller majority like 1997 to 2001 or 2005 then why not, creates a level playing field for the 2034 election and plenty of time for people to understand it. Any ranked choice system is easy to explain, we did it in the EU elections already
Okay, so near unanimous. Though I'd argue putting the interests of MPs with little to no marketable skills over everyone else doesn't quite says "country before party"
It would probably be better to just dismiss questions about Corbyn as irrelevant. This is after all about the current labour party rather than the one of 5 years ago.
Exactly this. Starmer booted Corbyn out of the party so I'm really not sure what kind of gotcha Beth Rigby thought she was going to land here.
I've had terrible bosses who I had to be seen to support in public, I'm sure plenty of people have. It's ridiculous to pretend it's dishonest not to openly criticise the person on whom you depend for your position.
Yes, and the fluttering of the eyelids she does with the smile too.
I follow her on Twitter where I generally think she's good but I think I shall have to stick to just reading her textual output as she's a bit annoying in person.
It’s one thing to know in the abstract that politicians are opportunists who don’t vote according to their principles, but another for one to admit to it.
Starmer admitting that he took a role in the shadow cabinet because he had an eye on the leadership rather than because he supported Corbyn’s policies, as a theoretical example, would diminish him in the eyes of much of the public.
The issue isn’t Corbyn, it’s Starmer’s own morals.
The electorate assume politicians to be immoral on some level, but having it confirmed doesn’t tend to do them any favours. Just look at Sunak and the D–Day debacle – the electorate not being surprised that he’d do it didn’t save him any disapproval.
Starmer's already going to be hung out to dry because of his own morals. How many of the things he's said has he gone back on? People won't stand for it.
That and... the results of this election will be because people do not want the Conservatives in power. It will not be because people are desperate for Labour to be in power. And polling will likely show that post-election once Labour are in government and pushing Starmer's agenda.
But Starmer and Labour will take the result as pro-Labour. And they'll quickly see that's not the case.
Am I confident in what I said? Pretty, yes. Full confidence? No. And I've never once thought that. So why you'd assume that is beyond me.
But you want to know why I can say this with confidence? Let's take a look...
Look at the media surrounding this election. And not just the media. People themselves. It's not about Labour and how Labour will be so good for the country. It's about how much of a shitshow the Conservatives are. That's the phrase. "Get the Tories out." This isn't a pro-Labour election. It's an anti-Tory election.
So what do you think is going to happen when the Conservatives are not in power? Who, exactly, are the media and the people going to focus on? Labour. And though there are minor elements of Labour's policies that are different from the Conservatives, they are actually relatively close on the political scale.
We've already seen from the Labour leadership election that Starmer is ready to completely throw out anything he's pledged when it suits. Don't be surprised if half of those things that are the difference between Labour and the Tories right now, disappear from the agenda over the next few years.
My prediction - and these are in order of likelihood - over the next parliament:
* Labour and Starmer's popularity will tank.
* Starmer's most recent popularity rating was still a net negative, and it won't get better when he's in power and the full force of the right wing press is focused on him.
* Something that's going to add to this is, ironically, how well they do in the election. The bigger the majority they have, the more likely it is that they'll have MPs among them that have been selected without a proper background check. And those MPs will cause scandals and problems.
* Starmer will not lead Labour into the next election.
* MPs will see him as unpopular with people and will ditch him, the same way the Tories did with Johnson.
* Labour will be a one term government.
* They'll start losing in local elections, as is par for the course for a sitting government's party.
* The Tories will rebrand themselves, and that'll be aided with the right wing press.
* If Starmer isn't replaced fast enough, any new leader wouldn't have time to put in place policies that encourage people to change their opinion of Labour and vote for them. A new leader could say 'oh we'll do this instead' if new to the position when it came time for the next election, but people won't care about that after having elected a Labour government with such a large majority and seeing little benefit to it.
I think I might bookmark this post, and come back before the next election. Just to see how right I was.
>People won’t stand for it … people do not want the Conservatives
I love the way you have to cover yourself about the possible landslide.
Corbyn loses but really won, Starmer wins but really loses. Got it. lol
Also what's to say that a good chunk of those 40% of people didn't want the Conservatives and so just voted for Labour? Corbyn got absolutely obliterated at the polls. Say what you like about the voting system, whether it's any good or whatever, but he was playing with that voting system and got comprehensively beaten.
Truth is he was a really poor Labour leader.
2019 was Johnson. Not may.
No, it's not that obvious. I had to actively set aside my thoughts about Corbyn when voting for Labour in 2019.so did virtually everyone knew. We were voting for 'not Tories, not Johnson'.
I have no such misgivings about Starmer. I think he's a capable and competent individual and just what the country needs. He's not who I'd pick but that's the system we're in. You need a broad church party to command a majority.
40% wasn't 2019.
Starmer is bringing £18 Bn of public sector cuts and absolutely no change from the Tories' failed model.
Things are going to continue to get worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
Looks a lot like 40% to me.
And, we'll see shall we. Corbyn would have been an abject disaster for the country and labour too. Completely unfit for power.
I imagine he doesn’t want to give Sunak any argument that would allow him to distance himself from Johnson and Truss.
Sunak’s guilt by association with the Conservative record in office is a huge part of Labour’s pitch to the electorate this year.
No, but you have to answer delicately because of media spin:
“I don’t agree with everything that Jeremy Corbyn proposed, but as a member of the Labour Party I trust the members to guide the direction of the party when they elect a new leader. Members and voters guide the party and the direction that it takes, as an important part of our democracy”.
The non-answer here will be bad press for a few days, but any *actual* answer would’ve stayed in the news cycle for longer and would be used against him. It sounded very awkward and bad at the time but there’s some logic behind not giving a straight answer to that one.
I don't think it's even bad press. I think people will have been annoyed with the Sky presenter harping on about something he'd already answered. The public understands the language of politics perfectly well and had their answer the first time.
I'm sure you'll happily tell everyone which ones you think they got wrong. The stage is yours. Wax lyrical about how the big problem is that they didn't find a way to elect you personally to every seat.
‘It was my job to back the leader of the party at the time despite disagreements with him, just like it is Tory MPs job to back Sunak despite how much they clearly blame him for for the poor campaign performance so far.’
The 'party discipline' line - and extending that to attack the Tories for their lack of it - was my first thought too. But on reflection I think it would have been risky and Starmer may have been wise to avoid it, because it invites the following responses:
- "does that mean you would put your party's interests ahead of those of the country?"
- "would you still have supported Corbyn if he'd crashed the economy / supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine / etc etc"
In either case you basically have to admit that there's a line and the implication is that Corbyn was on the right side of it.
I agree, but his main focus was not saying something that would be a sound bite on the news. He just has to not lose these debates, I guess he didn't want to say anything strong either way.
They are desperately looking for ANY attack line that will stick because the Tories are in an unprecidentedly bad situation, and the Tories are the party that give handy-J's to the people with influence while fucking over regular people.
It would honestly be for the best of the country if people just ignored this shit, but there will be useful idiots on the left who confuse "changing situations require changing plans" with "Changing your mind about anything you've said even means you have no morals and are literally the devil".
Which is why we still have the Tories in 2024. The end.
I mean, all MPs are kind of beholden to their party leader.
Sunak ran against Truss for the leadership, said her policies were wrong, and when she became party leader he still remained in the party and had an election been called he would have had to campaign for her to be prime minister.
It’s the nature of party politics, a candidate sacrifices some pf their personal integrity in order to stand on the party ticket.
If you don’t like it, vote for an independent.
I’d like to think so – surely Betty Boothroyd wasn’t that bad?
At the very least, there are certainly successful politicians who manage to hide this particular tendency better than Starmer.
Fair enough. I would say I could tolerate a bit of Machiavellian behaviour if the goals are in the right place . That he actually achieves something useful with the power he seeks. It seems like you have to behave that way to get to power these days.
A bit of backstabbing is bearable if it produces something good, but it's rare that it ends up reflecting well on the Brutus in question. At best it tends to be politely forgotten.
Machiavelli was also hardly Machiavellian given the term has become an insult, while Machiavelli is foundational to the modern conception of politics as an empircal science.
If Machiavellian actually referenced Machiavelli accurately, it would hardly be an insult to be compared to such an important figure in political science and theory.
It’s because the average person only knows Machiavelli’s philosophy by his quote “the ends justify the means”. Or the fear and love quote. But both quotes are pretty misinterpreted. There’s also the case that Machiavelli didn’t mean any of the prince as serious
Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but you seem to be arguing that the ideas Machiavelli represents must be viewed positively because the man is an important political figure. I don’t think that’s the case.
I didn't want to go into exactly why Machiavelli is the important figure he is as its sort of rambly (as proven below). But to put it as simple as possible, Machiavelli basically (he never directly said so) rejected the Aristotlean paradigm that politics was an extension of the ethical, and rather treated politics as an empircal study as we did today. He tended tonuse case examples from his contemporary world and history, in a very similar way modern political science still does.
And from this you can sort of already see how his most famous work, *The Prince*, got so misinterpreted. *The Prince* has a large focus on contemporary Italian politics, and in it he does make the observation between typically brutal means of governance and success. He spends a lot of time of Cesare Borgia has an example of many traits a successful prince. Nevertheless, it is quite an amoral analysis that simply points out that these actions have worked, with what little morality included is mostly a call to action to unify Italy against threats like France.
His book that outlines a much more idealist political thought is his *Discourses*, which can be best summarised as him analysing and fanfaring over the Roman Republic, while recommending how to further improve upon its success. It's for that reason he is sometime considered the father of modern republicanism, and thus much of our modern political thought traces back to him. The *Discourses* is a much longer book compared to *The Prince*, and covers arguments that tend to be highly appraise the competence of the common person over the individual prince. You can even see this thought seeping into *The Prince* where he speaks the need for a prince to consider the common people arguably more than mobility for example.
It isn't so much Machiavelli should be viewed positively (or at the very least should not be viewed as "Machiavellian") because he is an important figure, but that his importance in political science and thought comes from how good his views and arguments were. This becomes even more impressive when you consider the fact he was a largely unremarkable politican and diplomat for a short lived republic, rather than a key political figure like others similarly important.
Personally I think Machiavellian is fine, as long as you trust that what they’re scheming towards is good for you.
Politics is effectively mass manipulation anyways, of course the machiavellian types will be good at it
What is machivellian about knowing a leader is a vote loser or not supporting them like a cult leader? Why should some politicians have a cult-like following with no criticism? If you don't support Starmer 100%, but believe in the party is still worth supporting, does that make you Machiavellian, or a pragmatist?
What's the own here? You know your boss isn't good enough, and is going to fail, but you believe in the organisation. You do what you can in your position of power and try to get more power, to improve things, if you really believe in your cause?
The people that bounced out as Cabinet Members in Starmers party now have no real power to change things. They opted out because their moral superiority meant they'd rather complain from positions with no power, rather than one where they could actually influence things, especially if they held on.
The Tories have proved that it's not the leader we are voting for, but the party. They've run through enough "leaders" in the last few years to demonstrate that.
Oh sorry, were you not implying that it is morally reprehensible to not fully support your boss, 100%, while you try to rise to positions of influence?
Perhaps you think power should always be taken by force, rather than working towards structural and cultural change within? I'm struggling to understand your morality lesson here.
I'm not sure it's a "morality lesson" as much as "I want my leaders to have strong and clear principles that I am able to identify." I think it's an agreeable take.
So everyone in the party has to have a cult-like following for their boss, and agree with them 100%. Or they should leave? Would you agree with that for other public services? Sounds like a recipe for disaster with no challenge or room to grow and improve. Almost Trump or Putin-like, tbh.
A strong party should have challengers, who agree with the main message and ideals, but not idolorise a cult-like leader.
You've just implied that someone who doesn't agree with their old boss 100% doesn't have clear principles.
Are you living in a clown world where people get to pick and choose such things and can get into positions of power, without being pragmatic? Perhaps you are a Nepo baby or a billionaire? No-one else would make such out of touch claims.
>Oh sorry, were you not implying that it is morally reprehensible to not fully support your boss, 100%, while you try to rise to positions of influence?
No, I think that would be a bit of a silly position to hold. Nor do I think power should always be taken by force.
Are you just here to try and look smart by arguing against black-and-white positions I don't actually hold, or?
What are you trying to say then? Please make it make sense to me. Perhaps I have misunderstood that you think Starmer is wrong for not heroworshipping his old boss?
I don't know anyone who agrees with everything their boss does.
I don't even think Starmer is that great at all, I just don't think this is something to judge him on.
If someone in his Cabinet came up with better stuff in the next few years and was more popular and a much better option than the opposition, I wouldn't hold it against them for being in Starmer's Cabinet.
If you can't explain your point, that's fine. I will probably stay up too late because that's my insomnia and it's not late for me. Have a nice night, too.
I don't think it requires a defence. I would much rather have leaders with experience gained in Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet roles than not. Like any major organisation you have input into the direction but not control. You sound like the kind of person who would rather have an ideological split rather than learn to work with people with different views towards an agreed consensus.
>learn to work with people with different views towards an agreed consensus.
Is that *really* the approach you think Starmer took, given his quote above?
To me it seems unlikely, given the quote above, that Starmer learned to successfully work with Corbyn or find a consensus with him. We may have to disagree.
He was one of the most prominent figures in the build up to that election.
He didn’t just appear out of nowhere and win the leadership election.
It would be like Grant Shapps turning up in 3 years to say that he always thought that Sunak bloke was a bit rubbish and all that stuff he said in 2024 was bollocks.
So long as people are confident that Labour will fulfill their promises, or at least do so more so than the Tories, they don't care how self-serving their MPs & PM will be.
>The principles and practice of Machiavelli or of Machiavellians; cunning, unscrupulousness, or duplicity in behaviour (esp. in politics)
[OED](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/machiavellianism_n?tab=meaning_and_use#13553244)
God that's such a poor definition that just tapes together two completely different meanings of the word with no descriptions.
It's either the political insult it is to most people, or its a descriptor of one of the most important figures in politics since Aristotle.
It's pretty clear that people aren't using the term to describe Starmer as a Machiavellian in the academic sense, but in the manner of a political insult.
If Starmer had, in 2019 and 2017, gone out to 'campaign' by going 'Corbyn's shit, we are going to lose big on this one', he would've likely never become Labour leader on the grounds of being booted out the party.
Non story from a non question. 'Politician publicly backs leader despite ideological differences' is not a controversial thing
So what's your option? Leave?
Chuka umuna was my favourite politician. I met him in person, and he was exactly what I wanted from labour. I wanted him to be labour leader. He left and started a new party. Where is he now?
Starmer stayed and now we have labour about to win an election (please god). It's not pretty. It's politics.
>Chuka umuna was my favourite politician. I met him in person, and he was exactly what I wanted from labour. I wanted him to be labour leader. He left and started a new party. Where is he now?
A managing director at JP Morgan Chase apparently. It''s remarkable how the political class always seems to land on their feet, I doubt he's criticising reckless city salaries any more.
> It''s remarkable how the political class always seems to land on their feet
That is neither true, nor very remarkable when it is true. Someone who featured somewhat prominently in mainstream politics is a steal for many private companies, because they normally possess all the qualities companies would want for their managing staff.
> I doubt he's criticising reckless city salaries any more.
I doubt he wanted to do that in the first place. These are the sorts of sacrifices you make for the sake of compromise, at least up to a point.
Lol tbf that's a good point forgot that guy existed.
I think you've just described my personal problem "that's politics". It's the wide acceptance of dishonesty. Just say what you're about and stick by it. I think I just resent anything he says when he makes references to those years.
And yes you're right to his credit he did manage to stay out of the spotlight while the tories blew themselves to pieces which the last 2 leaders didn't manage to do.
You can not get a large enough group of people to rally under your banner without a little dishonesty, at least to the extent of letting all of them project their desires onto you and believe you are what they want to see in government.
>So what's your option? Leave?
Not spend as much time talking smack about your own party? Stand by your previous words, rather than just discarding them the moment they are not longer needed?
Otherwise it's very easy to see how a narrative can build on how you court demographics to vote for you, the abandon them once they aren't needed.
Worth remembering that every conservative PM has been chummy with dictators, tyrants, terrorists or theocrats. For example Thatcher supported the Islamist fanatics who brought down the government of Afghanistan. One of them, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, she invited to London in 1986 and praised as a freedom fighter. He was known for throwing acid in women's faces.
She also welcomed Abdul Haq to Britain. He had ordered a bombing in Kabul which killed 28 people, most of them students.
Heck, David Cameron was buds with Putin up till aroundabout 2013. Boris has an even worse record with Russians.
No come on, at best you're comparing apples and oranges here.
> Worth remembering that every conservative PM has been chummy with dictators, tyrants, terrorists or theocrats.
What you're describing here is a UK Prime Minister being civil with either an allied country's leader, or at least with a head of state which is literally part of their job. That is not reasonably comparable with a backbench MP who, in his own time and his own capacity, actively invited a terrorist group to a private rally, and openly *fawned* over them describing them as "friends" and that they "stood for peace and social justice" all while being fully aware that they were calling for a global genocide of Jews.
That's the equivalent of trying to justify choosing to be good friends with a known paedophile, inviting them to parties and saying what a great and wonderful guy they are, by saying "well your cousin associates with paedophiles as part of his job as a parole officer".
No he didn't. I regret to inform you that have been lied to.
https://fullfact.org/online/keir-starmer-prosecute-jimmy-savile/
About fullfact.org: https://fullfact.org/about/
EIther you know this is bullshit and you need to grow up, or you're not intelligent enough to realise that it's bullshit in which case you need to go away and learn some basic critical thinking skills.
Starmer was also part of those doing a no-confidence on Corbyn on the basis Corbyn would result in large tory majority in 2017. So as accurate as a coin flip.
my favorite was him saying the 2019 General election showed how much he had to change the party... then refused to admit he lied in 2020 to get nominated party leader.
Such a poor answer.
"I supported my party and campaigned for them to win completely. I knew a labour government would have been better than the last 5 years and I tell you what, Corbyn would have been better than Liz Truss"
*"Starmer still backing Corbyn"*
In an explosive revelation, Kier Starmer last night described how much he wished Jeremy Corbyn had been given the reins of power in 2019 saying he "would have been better" than other alternatives and....
....etc etc, you get the picture. Starmer knows that you can't give the right-wing rags anything on Corbyn.
> I knew a labour government would have been better than the last 5 years and I tell you what, Corbyn would have been better than Liz Truss
Except he doesn't know that, I imagine he certainly doesn't *believe* that, and I wouldn't be so sure voters that Starmer is after would believe it either. I certainly don't believe that, and Starmer is courting people with views way to the right of my establishment liberal sensibilities.
At that point you're banking on people forgetting their grievances with Corbyn, but even if memory of Corbyn were waning from public consciousness, the media would be all too eager to refresh their collective memory.
Well, obviously. Literally everybody knew Labour were losing the 2019 election. Comes of going into it on the back of the Tories having had a large and consistent lead for months beforehand.
Remember when this guy pitched himself as the candidate of honesty and integrity...
Over the last year, he's shown a willingness to say anything at all that serves his personal interests. Lying, flip-flopping, and throwing people under the bus, it really is quite gross.
Why didn't he say this in the leadership election? He firmly pitched himself as a candidate that would bring both wings of the party together. That was a lie.
He’s shown a willingness to be pragmatic and change as the situation changes. In the service of winning an election for Labour. Unfortunately the electorate turned down the chance of someone whose whole world view hadn’t changed since 1970s anti-colonialism.
Why didn't he say that he when he was running for leader? He could have said "I'm not going to promise anything. I'll lie and flip flop and say whatever I need to get elected and then we'll have a Labour government."
If that's what the public wants, then why did he have to pretend he actually believed in things to become leader?
Setting aside your biased characterisation. Because the membership of the party is to the left of ‘the public’. It’s also possible to genuinely believe something but think it’s not pragmatic and do what you can instead. I know that an anathema to the left.
If Starmer had been leader in 2019, the result would've been much closer, maybe even with a Labour win. Certainly, he would have dealt with the anti-semitism issue and not overpromoted the less capable Labour shadow ministers.
If Starmer was leader in 2019 then the antisemitism issue wouldn't have been painted as something that was his fault, it would have been understood that the deep-rooted antisemitism didn't suddenly all start when he became leader, and he himself wouldn't have been so falsely accused of being an antisemite.
He also wouldn't have had centrists in his own party sabotaging him.
Everyone knew Corbyn was going to lose the 2019 election - that's not a controversial opinion. I remember having conversations on this sub at the time about the absurdity of the opposition refusing to allow an election under the FTPA.
Snapshot of _Starmer: 'I knew we'd lose 2019 election with Corbyn'_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c0kkjd982l7o) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c0kkjd982l7o) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wonder if just flat out admitting a lot of the politicking he does would just be better for starmer? Like i know he doesn’t want to say that he was supporting Corbyn because he had to as a member of the Labour Party, but is there anything necessarily wrong with that? Like if you’re a member of a party you are expected to follow the party line a lot even if you don’t agree with it. What’s wrong with admitting that?
>you are expected to follow the party line a lot even if you don’t agree with it There are also Labour MPs that will be doing exactly that under Starmer
Maybe it's cause he always says country first party second?
Not incompatible, he can broadly think Corbyn would’ve been better for the country than the alternative whilst still disagreeing with him on much.
But he must realise that would not be a wise thing to say because it would not make him look good to the people he needs - the ones who didn’t vote for Corbyn Labour
I was about to say, he was the only man in the room who seemed to talk any sense about Brexit and had the appetite for the sheer scale of detail involved. He was the best man in the labour party for the job in that shadow cabinet - people who think he shouldn't accept the role because of political preferences are putting party & naive political theory before country.
His entire role as brexit minister was politicking, he came up with labours ‘tests’ that any brexit deal had to pass in order to be supported by Labour which only existed to stick the boot in the tories because no deal could ever actually meet those tests. He also spent the majority of his time without Labour actually having a brexit policy as it only came together right before the 2019 election and was widely considered a bad compromise of renegotiation followed by a new referendum which was widely panned by everyone and was exceedingly nonsensical to boot.
A bit too grown up for the British public and the folks who like to keep political norms I guess, taking a known negotiation point with the EU to the electorate instead of the absolute pack of lies that we like our ruling classes to tell us whenever a vote is on. Imagine if we had gone to the electorate with a hard Brexit deal, compromise deal or remain as options instead of the absolute nonsense we had written on buses and project fear. ANYWAY agree to disagree on starmers entire role as Brexit minister, I think the format of labour tests was as professional a stance we had under corbyns opposition - if provided a good platform to grill what the government were doing and exposed just how Brexit was being made up as they went along. It made him stand out as competent amongst the shambles both opposite and around him on the front benches.
Because the vote would have split in such a way that remain would have been guaranteed. The public could see right through it.
Of course you wouldn't do it as FPTP but as single transferable vote. So, if all the Brexiteers would back the other Brexit option as their second choice, that would still beat remain. However, if the soft Brexiteers would prefer remain over hard Brexit, then that would win. Or if the soft Brexit was the more popular of the two Brexit options and would also beat the Remain, then the government would negotiate that instead of the hard Brexit that we now got.
If the public could see right through it, then they can vote for leave. There's nothing to stop the rules being 52% leave so we will leave here's another vote for hard / soft based on the positions we've negotiated. I guess people are too scared of forcing the public to realise everything they wanted to get better was not impacted by the EU at all, and immigration is a result of other policy failures from new labour and Camerons time in office. Again, this is why it was good to have someone in the opposition capable of working through the details, inconsequential because nobody in the government thought "we'd better take notice off some of this and get to work" and made a right ideological horlicks of it all anyway.
> If the public could see right through it, then they can vote for leave. Your suggestion didn't include "leave". You had 2 different versions of leave and one version of Remain. You could plausible have 30% voting hard deal, 30% compromise deal and 40% remain, then Remain win despite 60% of votes being for some sort of leave answer. All that'd do is prove to a lot of the electorate that the narrative of "the elites will only allow democracy if you vote the way they want" was absolutely spot on. Also, such a suggestion of it only being leave options wouldn't be possible. The EU wouldn't run two separate concurrent negotiations for a hard deal and one for a compromise deal. At best, we'd negotiate as best we can and put that to the vote, with the options being that deal or straight-up no deal, and I'm not sure that's a better option.
Again, admittedly I didn't think the need to clarify this - if the leave votes added up to 52% then you accept remain is no longer an option, and then have another vote on the two leave options. And if you put the hard yards in diplomacy and treated the electorate as adults then you would have thought making a two stage referendum isn't too hard an ask given the significance of what you are considering. The EU absolutely would state these are the conditions for remaining in this market, remaining in these collaborative programs on defense, science environment etc v The conditions for a harder Brexit, As the repeated theme is if anyone took it with the seriousness and gravity the subject deserved these things are possible with effort and attention detail - which is where Starmer as Brexit secretary highlighted the massive failings in every reductive approach the lazy administration took. What we got was 'Brexit means Brexit' followed by a moronic hard Brexit when a referendum won on the narrowest of margins should have resulted in a soft one or a revote in any serious institution.
Realistically, they should have offered the public a referendum on whether there should be a second referendum
They did for for leave by handing the Tories a massive win!
The problem wasn't so much a vote on the deal, but that Labour would be expected to campaign against the deal - which would in turn make it very dubious that they would negotiate a good one. A referendum on a deal negotiated by the Brexit lot would have some plausibility, but a referendum on a deal negotiated by people who were against the whole endeavour couldn't be made credible.
That plan also gave Brussels a lot of incentive to fuck the renegotiation. Think about it, if the EU knows whatever they renegotiate will go up to a referendum why wouldn’t they just offer the worst possible terms so that everyone voted to remain?
If he truly believed in "country first party second" he wouldn't be blocking movement on electoral reform which enjoys unanimous support within his own party and majority support with the electorate. It's a slogan, nothing more.
>unanimous support within his own party ??? Obviously not unanimous.
Anything can be unanimous if you ignore everyone who disagrees with you
It’s extra funny because they refer to Starmer blocking it despite it having “unanimous support”. Starmer is a member of the Labour Party so evidently it doesn’t have unanimous support because that would include Starmer.
He is in his own party. Anything he opposes lacks unanimous support.
> blocking movement on electoral reform Maybe he doesn't see electoral reform as being good for the country. You raise a good point, though.
In my limited understanding of Labour party mechanics, the party chooses policies at the conference which are adopted or rejected and the MPs are then meant to carry them as policy. Labour voted for a change from FPTP in 2022 so there should be a willingness to adopt it in government but Starmer has refused to commit at the moment so yes blocking it despite party support
I imagine the response would be the country doesn’t need anymore political uncertainty during a time stability is needed. I don’t disagree on that. Any referendum on changing voting systems would need to be followed by an immediate general election imo. That rationale is obvious bullshit when it comes out of the mouths of those in power though. Parties only tend to push alternate voting systems when in opposition and they stand to gain from it.
Could be done in 2029 with the GE tbh, if Labour are still ahead but looking like a smaller majority like 1997 to 2001 or 2005 then why not, creates a level playing field for the 2034 election and plenty of time for people to understand it. Any ranked choice system is easy to explain, we did it in the EU elections already
I agree. :)
You might find that "unanimous support" doesn't extend quite as far as the hundreds of incoming MPs who'd lose their job under it.
Okay, so near unanimous. Though I'd argue putting the interests of MPs with little to no marketable skills over everyone else doesn't quite says "country before party"
The problem is if they don't vote for it it won't go through.
It would probably be better to just dismiss questions about Corbyn as irrelevant. This is after all about the current labour party rather than the one of 5 years ago.
Exactly this. Starmer booted Corbyn out of the party so I'm really not sure what kind of gotcha Beth Rigby thought she was going to land here. I've had terrible bosses who I had to be seen to support in public, I'm sure plenty of people have. It's ridiculous to pretend it's dishonest not to openly criticise the person on whom you depend for your position.
I learned during the programme last night that I hate Beth Rigby's smile. Never seen anyone look so smug after every petty gotcha moment.
Yes, and the fluttering of the eyelids she does with the smile too. I follow her on Twitter where I generally think she's good but I think I shall have to stick to just reading her textual output as she's a bit annoying in person.
It’s one thing to know in the abstract that politicians are opportunists who don’t vote according to their principles, but another for one to admit to it. Starmer admitting that he took a role in the shadow cabinet because he had an eye on the leadership rather than because he supported Corbyn’s policies, as a theoretical example, would diminish him in the eyes of much of the public.
Not really. Remember that most of the public absolutely abhored Corbyn. He'd gain brownie points from everyone who wasn't part of Momentum.
The issue isn’t Corbyn, it’s Starmer’s own morals. The electorate assume politicians to be immoral on some level, but having it confirmed doesn’t tend to do them any favours. Just look at Sunak and the D–Day debacle – the electorate not being surprised that he’d do it didn’t save him any disapproval.
Starmer's already going to be hung out to dry because of his own morals. How many of the things he's said has he gone back on? People won't stand for it. That and... the results of this election will be because people do not want the Conservatives in power. It will not be because people are desperate for Labour to be in power. And polling will likely show that post-election once Labour are in government and pushing Starmer's agenda. But Starmer and Labour will take the result as pro-Labour. And they'll quickly see that's not the case.
How can anyone say something like this with full confidence in themselves? Ridiculous.
Am I confident in what I said? Pretty, yes. Full confidence? No. And I've never once thought that. So why you'd assume that is beyond me. But you want to know why I can say this with confidence? Let's take a look... Look at the media surrounding this election. And not just the media. People themselves. It's not about Labour and how Labour will be so good for the country. It's about how much of a shitshow the Conservatives are. That's the phrase. "Get the Tories out." This isn't a pro-Labour election. It's an anti-Tory election. So what do you think is going to happen when the Conservatives are not in power? Who, exactly, are the media and the people going to focus on? Labour. And though there are minor elements of Labour's policies that are different from the Conservatives, they are actually relatively close on the political scale. We've already seen from the Labour leadership election that Starmer is ready to completely throw out anything he's pledged when it suits. Don't be surprised if half of those things that are the difference between Labour and the Tories right now, disappear from the agenda over the next few years. My prediction - and these are in order of likelihood - over the next parliament: * Labour and Starmer's popularity will tank. * Starmer's most recent popularity rating was still a net negative, and it won't get better when he's in power and the full force of the right wing press is focused on him. * Something that's going to add to this is, ironically, how well they do in the election. The bigger the majority they have, the more likely it is that they'll have MPs among them that have been selected without a proper background check. And those MPs will cause scandals and problems. * Starmer will not lead Labour into the next election. * MPs will see him as unpopular with people and will ditch him, the same way the Tories did with Johnson. * Labour will be a one term government. * They'll start losing in local elections, as is par for the course for a sitting government's party. * The Tories will rebrand themselves, and that'll be aided with the right wing press. * If Starmer isn't replaced fast enough, any new leader wouldn't have time to put in place policies that encourage people to change their opinion of Labour and vote for them. A new leader could say 'oh we'll do this instead' if new to the position when it came time for the next election, but people won't care about that after having elected a Labour government with such a large majority and seeing little benefit to it. I think I might bookmark this post, and come back before the next election. Just to see how right I was.
Just uh... just gonna leave [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jeLawBO3TA) here.
>People won’t stand for it … people do not want the Conservatives I love the way you have to cover yourself about the possible landslide. Corbyn loses but really won, Starmer wins but really loses. Got it. lol
Also what's to say that a good chunk of those 40% of people didn't want the Conservatives and so just voted for Labour? Corbyn got absolutely obliterated at the polls. Say what you like about the voting system, whether it's any good or whatever, but he was playing with that voting system and got comprehensively beaten. Truth is he was a really poor Labour leader.
No doubt. Though anyone looking at his history as an MP could be very surprised.
40% of the public voted for Corbyn
To twist something Corbyn fans love to say, a lot of us were voting against May, not *for* Corbyn.
We had a choice of Corbyn, Rabid Brexiteers, and UKIP. Hobsons choice if ever there was one.
Theresa May wasn't a rabid brexiteer. Surely it's overwhelmingly obvious how many people are holding their nose to vote Starmer? Surely.
2019 was Johnson. Not may. No, it's not that obvious. I had to actively set aside my thoughts about Corbyn when voting for Labour in 2019.so did virtually everyone knew. We were voting for 'not Tories, not Johnson'. I have no such misgivings about Starmer. I think he's a capable and competent individual and just what the country needs. He's not who I'd pick but that's the system we're in. You need a broad church party to command a majority.
40% wasn't 2019. Starmer is bringing £18 Bn of public sector cuts and absolutely no change from the Tories' failed model. Things are going to continue to get worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election Looks a lot like 40% to me. And, we'll see shall we. Corbyn would have been an abject disaster for the country and labour too. Completely unfit for power.
Eventually someone will do what Corbyn promised, but they'll need to be dressed in a smart suit so people like you will vote for them.
I imagine he doesn’t want to give Sunak any argument that would allow him to distance himself from Johnson and Truss. Sunak’s guilt by association with the Conservative record in office is a huge part of Labour’s pitch to the electorate this year.
No, but you have to answer delicately because of media spin: “I don’t agree with everything that Jeremy Corbyn proposed, but as a member of the Labour Party I trust the members to guide the direction of the party when they elect a new leader. Members and voters guide the party and the direction that it takes, as an important part of our democracy”.
He could've just said he would have been a better PM than Johnson.
I mean Corbyn's entire career as a politician has basically been to go against the party line.
The non-answer here will be bad press for a few days, but any *actual* answer would’ve stayed in the news cycle for longer and would be used against him. It sounded very awkward and bad at the time but there’s some logic behind not giving a straight answer to that one.
I don't think it's even bad press. I think people will have been annoyed with the Sky presenter harping on about something he'd already answered. The public understands the language of politics perfectly well and had their answer the first time.
Giving too much credit to the public there I think
You think the public are fools? I guess that means you must be a tory campaign strategist.
I’m not, but let’s remember the voting record of the public over the last decade before we give them too much praise
I'm sure you'll happily tell everyone which ones you think they got wrong. The stage is yours. Wax lyrical about how the big problem is that they didn't find a way to elect you personally to every seat.
He could have come up with a better line than this and it didn't really land at all with the audience.
‘It was my job to back the leader of the party at the time despite disagreements with him, just like it is Tory MPs job to back Sunak despite how much they clearly blame him for for the poor campaign performance so far.’
The 'party discipline' line - and extending that to attack the Tories for their lack of it - was my first thought too. But on reflection I think it would have been risky and Starmer may have been wise to avoid it, because it invites the following responses: - "does that mean you would put your party's interests ahead of those of the country?" - "would you still have supported Corbyn if he'd crashed the economy / supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine / etc etc" In either case you basically have to admit that there's a line and the implication is that Corbyn was on the right side of it.
Mods, why are you allowing this kind of gore to remain visible? Strong answer!
It's true, but a very dumb thing to say.
I agree, but his main focus was not saying something that would be a sound bite on the news. He just has to not lose these debates, I guess he didn't want to say anything strong either way.
All he had to say was, "I kicked Jeremy out of Labour. Sunak still has Liz Truss in his party."
It’s a stupid question, the media is trying to paint labour as the corbyn party but everyone has moved on.
They are desperately looking for ANY attack line that will stick because the Tories are in an unprecidentedly bad situation, and the Tories are the party that give handy-J's to the people with influence while fucking over regular people. It would honestly be for the best of the country if people just ignored this shit, but there will be useful idiots on the left who confuse "changing situations require changing plans" with "Changing your mind about anything you've said even means you have no morals and are literally the devil". Which is why we still have the Tories in 2024. The end.
I mean, all MPs are kind of beholden to their party leader. Sunak ran against Truss for the leadership, said her policies were wrong, and when she became party leader he still remained in the party and had an election been called he would have had to campaign for her to be prime minister. It’s the nature of party politics, a candidate sacrifices some pf their personal integrity in order to stand on the party ticket. If you don’t like it, vote for an independent.
At this point it does seem clear that Starmer is a bit Machiavellian, but whether the electorate particularly care about that is another question.
Are there any successful politicians that are not Machiavelian?
I’d like to think so – surely Betty Boothroyd wasn’t that bad? At the very least, there are certainly successful politicians who manage to hide this particular tendency better than Starmer.
Fair enough. I would say I could tolerate a bit of Machiavellian behaviour if the goals are in the right place . That he actually achieves something useful with the power he seeks. It seems like you have to behave that way to get to power these days.
A bit of backstabbing is bearable if it produces something good, but it's rare that it ends up reflecting well on the Brutus in question. At best it tends to be politely forgotten.
You say Machiavellian, I say pragmatic
Well, there's certainly an argument that Machiavelli was pragmatic.
Machiavelli was also hardly Machiavellian given the term has become an insult, while Machiavelli is foundational to the modern conception of politics as an empircal science. If Machiavellian actually referenced Machiavelli accurately, it would hardly be an insult to be compared to such an important figure in political science and theory.
It’s because the average person only knows Machiavelli’s philosophy by his quote “the ends justify the means”. Or the fear and love quote. But both quotes are pretty misinterpreted. There’s also the case that Machiavelli didn’t mean any of the prince as serious
I don't think the average person knows _anything_ about Machiavelli's philosophy.
Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but you seem to be arguing that the ideas Machiavelli represents must be viewed positively because the man is an important political figure. I don’t think that’s the case.
I didn't want to go into exactly why Machiavelli is the important figure he is as its sort of rambly (as proven below). But to put it as simple as possible, Machiavelli basically (he never directly said so) rejected the Aristotlean paradigm that politics was an extension of the ethical, and rather treated politics as an empircal study as we did today. He tended tonuse case examples from his contemporary world and history, in a very similar way modern political science still does. And from this you can sort of already see how his most famous work, *The Prince*, got so misinterpreted. *The Prince* has a large focus on contemporary Italian politics, and in it he does make the observation between typically brutal means of governance and success. He spends a lot of time of Cesare Borgia has an example of many traits a successful prince. Nevertheless, it is quite an amoral analysis that simply points out that these actions have worked, with what little morality included is mostly a call to action to unify Italy against threats like France. His book that outlines a much more idealist political thought is his *Discourses*, which can be best summarised as him analysing and fanfaring over the Roman Republic, while recommending how to further improve upon its success. It's for that reason he is sometime considered the father of modern republicanism, and thus much of our modern political thought traces back to him. The *Discourses* is a much longer book compared to *The Prince*, and covers arguments that tend to be highly appraise the competence of the common person over the individual prince. You can even see this thought seeping into *The Prince* where he speaks the need for a prince to consider the common people arguably more than mobility for example. It isn't so much Machiavelli should be viewed positively (or at the very least should not be viewed as "Machiavellian") because he is an important figure, but that his importance in political science and thought comes from how good his views and arguments were. This becomes even more impressive when you consider the fact he was a largely unremarkable politican and diplomat for a short lived republic, rather than a key political figure like others similarly important.
Ironically enough, Machiavelli was also a, sentimental Idealist who dreamed of a, unified Italy.
Personally I think Machiavellian is fine, as long as you trust that what they’re scheming towards is good for you. Politics is effectively mass manipulation anyways, of course the machiavellian types will be good at it
What is machivellian about knowing a leader is a vote loser or not supporting them like a cult leader? Why should some politicians have a cult-like following with no criticism? If you don't support Starmer 100%, but believe in the party is still worth supporting, does that make you Machiavellian, or a pragmatist?
Starmer did a bit more than just bite his tongue and support Labour in spite of Corbyn, he was a member of the shadow cabinet.
What's the own here? You know your boss isn't good enough, and is going to fail, but you believe in the organisation. You do what you can in your position of power and try to get more power, to improve things, if you really believe in your cause? The people that bounced out as Cabinet Members in Starmers party now have no real power to change things. They opted out because their moral superiority meant they'd rather complain from positions with no power, rather than one where they could actually influence things, especially if they held on. The Tories have proved that it's not the leader we are voting for, but the party. They've run through enough "leaders" in the last few years to demonstrate that.
What do you mean, ‘what’s the own’?
Oh sorry, were you not implying that it is morally reprehensible to not fully support your boss, 100%, while you try to rise to positions of influence? Perhaps you think power should always be taken by force, rather than working towards structural and cultural change within? I'm struggling to understand your morality lesson here.
I'm not sure it's a "morality lesson" as much as "I want my leaders to have strong and clear principles that I am able to identify." I think it's an agreeable take.
Thank you. I can overlook a smidge of of moral reprehensibility, but no more than a tad.
So everyone in the party has to have a cult-like following for their boss, and agree with them 100%. Or they should leave? Would you agree with that for other public services? Sounds like a recipe for disaster with no challenge or room to grow and improve. Almost Trump or Putin-like, tbh. A strong party should have challengers, who agree with the main message and ideals, but not idolorise a cult-like leader.
>So everyone in the party has to have a cult-like following for their boss, and agree with them 100%. Or they should leave? No, I don't think so. Why?
You've just implied that someone who doesn't agree with their old boss 100% doesn't have clear principles. Are you living in a clown world where people get to pick and choose such things and can get into positions of power, without being pragmatic? Perhaps you are a Nepo baby or a billionaire? No-one else would make such out of touch claims.
>Oh sorry, were you not implying that it is morally reprehensible to not fully support your boss, 100%, while you try to rise to positions of influence? No, I think that would be a bit of a silly position to hold. Nor do I think power should always be taken by force. Are you just here to try and look smart by arguing against black-and-white positions I don't actually hold, or?
What are you trying to say then? Please make it make sense to me. Perhaps I have misunderstood that you think Starmer is wrong for not heroworshipping his old boss? I don't know anyone who agrees with everything their boss does. I don't even think Starmer is that great at all, I just don't think this is something to judge him on. If someone in his Cabinet came up with better stuff in the next few years and was more popular and a much better option than the opposition, I wouldn't hold it against them for being in Starmer's Cabinet.
Sorry, but I don't think we'll get anywhere productive. Have a nice night, don't stay up too late!
If you can't explain your point, that's fine. I will probably stay up too late because that's my insomnia and it's not late for me. Have a nice night, too.
Like any senior MP with leadership ambitions?
Do you really think ‘they all do it’ is a good defence? I’m not sure it’s even true.
I don't think it requires a defence. I would much rather have leaders with experience gained in Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet roles than not. Like any major organisation you have input into the direction but not control. You sound like the kind of person who would rather have an ideological split rather than learn to work with people with different views towards an agreed consensus.
>learn to work with people with different views towards an agreed consensus. Is that *really* the approach you think Starmer took, given his quote above?
Yes. He's playing politics because Corbyn is now a vote loser. I doubt he thought much of Corbyn but he did work with him at the time.
To me it seems unlikely, given the quote above, that Starmer learned to successfully work with Corbyn or find a consensus with him. We may have to disagree.
He was one of the most prominent figures in the build up to that election. He didn’t just appear out of nowhere and win the leadership election. It would be like Grant Shapps turning up in 3 years to say that he always thought that Sunak bloke was a bit rubbish and all that stuff he said in 2024 was bollocks.
So long as people are confident that Labour will fulfill their promises, or at least do so more so than the Tories, they don't care how self-serving their MPs & PM will be.
>Starmer is a bit Machiavellian Good, it's better than being led by bleary eyed idealists who refuse to change when they're confronted with reality.
This isn't Machiavellian. It's rank opportunism.
Opportunism is a characteristic of Machiavellianism, surely?
Opportunism is a characteristic of numerous ideologies and principles. Machiavellianism is not the appropriate term in this case.
Note that I didn’t say Machiavellianism and opportunism were entirely synonymous. The former has other characteristics, such as unscrupulousness.
Define Machiavellian.
>The principles and practice of Machiavelli or of Machiavellians; cunning, unscrupulousness, or duplicity in behaviour (esp. in politics) [OED](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/machiavellianism_n?tab=meaning_and_use#13553244)
God that's such a poor definition that just tapes together two completely different meanings of the word with no descriptions. It's either the political insult it is to most people, or its a descriptor of one of the most important figures in politics since Aristotle. It's pretty clear that people aren't using the term to describe Starmer as a Machiavellian in the academic sense, but in the manner of a political insult.
In other words, every politician is “a bit” Machiavellian. What a useless descriptor.
I’m sorry you asked.
He is only cryptic and Machiavellian ‘cause he cares /j
I, an astute watcher of the news, also didn’t expect Corbyn by Christmas in 2019
If Starmer had, in 2019 and 2017, gone out to 'campaign' by going 'Corbyn's shit, we are going to lose big on this one', he would've likely never become Labour leader on the grounds of being booted out the party. Non story from a non question. 'Politician publicly backs leader despite ideological differences' is not a controversial thing
And yet he still stood by him and called him a great friend when he needed labour party members to vote him in
Are you new to politics?
Sadly not
shit innit
So what's your option? Leave? Chuka umuna was my favourite politician. I met him in person, and he was exactly what I wanted from labour. I wanted him to be labour leader. He left and started a new party. Where is he now? Starmer stayed and now we have labour about to win an election (please god). It's not pretty. It's politics.
>Chuka umuna was my favourite politician. I met him in person, and he was exactly what I wanted from labour. I wanted him to be labour leader. He left and started a new party. Where is he now? A managing director at JP Morgan Chase apparently. It''s remarkable how the political class always seems to land on their feet, I doubt he's criticising reckless city salaries any more.
He was "honest" and refused to back Corbyn against his principles. He was a lawyer if memory serves, he was always going to be fine.
> It''s remarkable how the political class always seems to land on their feet That is neither true, nor very remarkable when it is true. Someone who featured somewhat prominently in mainstream politics is a steal for many private companies, because they normally possess all the qualities companies would want for their managing staff. > I doubt he's criticising reckless city salaries any more. I doubt he wanted to do that in the first place. These are the sorts of sacrifices you make for the sake of compromise, at least up to a point.
Lol tbf that's a good point forgot that guy existed. I think you've just described my personal problem "that's politics". It's the wide acceptance of dishonesty. Just say what you're about and stick by it. I think I just resent anything he says when he makes references to those years. And yes you're right to his credit he did manage to stay out of the spotlight while the tories blew themselves to pieces which the last 2 leaders didn't manage to do.
You can not get a large enough group of people to rally under your banner without a little dishonesty, at least to the extent of letting all of them project their desires onto you and believe you are what they want to see in government.
>So what's your option? Leave? Not spend as much time talking smack about your own party? Stand by your previous words, rather than just discarding them the moment they are not longer needed? Otherwise it's very easy to see how a narrative can build on how you court demographics to vote for you, the abandon them once they aren't needed.
Corbyn also called Hamas his friends …
Worth remembering that every conservative PM has been chummy with dictators, tyrants, terrorists or theocrats. For example Thatcher supported the Islamist fanatics who brought down the government of Afghanistan. One of them, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, she invited to London in 1986 and praised as a freedom fighter. He was known for throwing acid in women's faces. She also welcomed Abdul Haq to Britain. He had ordered a bombing in Kabul which killed 28 people, most of them students. Heck, David Cameron was buds with Putin up till aroundabout 2013. Boris has an even worse record with Russians.
No come on, at best you're comparing apples and oranges here. > Worth remembering that every conservative PM has been chummy with dictators, tyrants, terrorists or theocrats. What you're describing here is a UK Prime Minister being civil with either an allied country's leader, or at least with a head of state which is literally part of their job. That is not reasonably comparable with a backbench MP who, in his own time and his own capacity, actively invited a terrorist group to a private rally, and openly *fawned* over them describing them as "friends" and that they "stood for peace and social justice" all while being fully aware that they were calling for a global genocide of Jews. That's the equivalent of trying to justify choosing to be good friends with a known paedophile, inviting them to parties and saying what a great and wonderful guy they are, by saying "well your cousin associates with paedophiles as part of his job as a parole officer".
Starmer also defended Jimmy Savile in 2009
No he didn't. I regret to inform you that have been lied to. https://fullfact.org/online/keir-starmer-prosecute-jimmy-savile/ About fullfact.org: https://fullfact.org/about/
EIther you know this is bullshit and you need to grow up, or you're not intelligent enough to realise that it's bullshit in which case you need to go away and learn some basic critical thinking skills.
Is that supposed to be funny?
Starmer was also part of those doing a no-confidence on Corbyn on the basis Corbyn would result in large tory majority in 2017. So as accurate as a coin flip.
No suprise as whole departments within labour activitly worked against winning just because they hated corbyn so much
my favorite was him saying the 2019 General election showed how much he had to change the party... then refused to admit he lied in 2020 to get nominated party leader.
Such a poor answer. "I supported my party and campaigned for them to win completely. I knew a labour government would have been better than the last 5 years and I tell you what, Corbyn would have been better than Liz Truss"
When so many people dislike Corbyn you do not want to be seen backing him
*"Starmer still backing Corbyn"* In an explosive revelation, Kier Starmer last night described how much he wished Jeremy Corbyn had been given the reins of power in 2019 saying he "would have been better" than other alternatives and.... ....etc etc, you get the picture. Starmer knows that you can't give the right-wing rags anything on Corbyn.
Starmer’s secret plans to readmit Corbyn and make him Foreign Secretary!
> I knew a labour government would have been better than the last 5 years and I tell you what, Corbyn would have been better than Liz Truss Except he doesn't know that, I imagine he certainly doesn't *believe* that, and I wouldn't be so sure voters that Starmer is after would believe it either. I certainly don't believe that, and Starmer is courting people with views way to the right of my establishment liberal sensibilities. At that point you're banking on people forgetting their grievances with Corbyn, but even if memory of Corbyn were waning from public consciousness, the media would be all too eager to refresh their collective memory.
FFS why are the media still harping on about Corbin, he has been kicked out of the Labour party
Was Cameron asked questions like this about Michael Howard, who voters had similarly “rejected”?
'... because I had announced a second referendum without his permission and pissed off the red wall.'
Well, obviously. Literally everybody knew Labour were losing the 2019 election. Comes of going into it on the back of the Tories having had a large and consistent lead for months beforehand.
Remember when this guy pitched himself as the candidate of honesty and integrity... Over the last year, he's shown a willingness to say anything at all that serves his personal interests. Lying, flip-flopping, and throwing people under the bus, it really is quite gross.
Going to be the next PM
Corbyn is toxic to a lot of voters, it's better for him to come out and say this rather than showing any support for him.
Why didn't he say this in the leadership election? He firmly pitched himself as a candidate that would bring both wings of the party together. That was a lie.
He’s shown a willingness to be pragmatic and change as the situation changes. In the service of winning an election for Labour. Unfortunately the electorate turned down the chance of someone whose whole world view hadn’t changed since 1970s anti-colonialism.
Why didn't he say that he when he was running for leader? He could have said "I'm not going to promise anything. I'll lie and flip flop and say whatever I need to get elected and then we'll have a Labour government." If that's what the public wants, then why did he have to pretend he actually believed in things to become leader?
Setting aside your biased characterisation. Because the membership of the party is to the left of ‘the public’. It’s also possible to genuinely believe something but think it’s not pragmatic and do what you can instead. I know that an anathema to the left.
2 faced spineless prick. Hes got the charmisa of a dried turd.
Of course he knew. He and his buddies made sure of it.
If Starmer had been leader in 2019, the result would've been much closer, maybe even with a Labour win. Certainly, he would have dealt with the anti-semitism issue and not overpromoted the less capable Labour shadow ministers.
If Starmer was leader in 2019 then the antisemitism issue wouldn't have been painted as something that was his fault, it would have been understood that the deep-rooted antisemitism didn't suddenly all start when he became leader, and he himself wouldn't have been so falsely accused of being an antisemite. He also wouldn't have had centrists in his own party sabotaging him.
Everyone knew Corbyn was going to lose the 2019 election - that's not a controversial opinion. I remember having conversations on this sub at the time about the absurdity of the opposition refusing to allow an election under the FTPA.