I’m unsure if this is true but I read somewhere that starmer is projected to win more seats but with less votes than labour did under Jeremy Corbyn… Because of the vote split between more parties. Not verified it though so take with a pinch of salt
>Leaving Labour has been a wrench. “It’s been my life,” he says. He’d wanted to stand for the party but couldn’t, having been blocked for saying that antisemitism during his time as Labour leader was exaggerated. After he announced he would run alone, he was told he’s lost his party membership too. That put an end to a more than five-decade journey, as he joined Labour before England won the 1966 World Cup. Old habits die hard: he refers to Nargund as the “official” Labour candidate (you get the sense he feels like the unofficial but real one), and still sometimes says “we” and “us” about the party. Corbyn says a recent door-knocking outing became a therapy session for a group who feel Labour has changed. “Many people around the country whose whole lives have revolved around aspects of the party now find themselves suspended, removed and so on, and they feel quite sad about it,” he says.
>For Corbyn, Sir Keir’s Labour is less of a “broad church” even than Sir Tony Blair’s in 1997. He points out that the first Blair cabinet included Robin Cook, Chris Mullin and others, all of the Left wing. “Blair wasn’t as authoritarian,” he says. “I remember arguments with the whips office many times during New Labour… but they didn’t approach the whole thing as a threat.”
I don’t particularly like Corbyn or the hard-left cult of personality that surrounds him, but I agree with his point about the need for further left-wing voices to have some representation in Labour.
Maybe when this campaign is behind us, cooler heads can prevail and he can be quietly let back in his a Labour member, or even granted a peerage.
>A lot has happened since 2019 — the implosions of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have made the Tories much weaker. Last week, Corbyn said he’d “absolutely” beat Rishi Sunak if he were still Labour leader today. “Be honest about it: it’s much more to do with an anti-Tory vote than a pro-Labour vote,” he says. “People are fed up with poverty.” Of course, that doesn’t fully explain why Corbyn lost less than five years ago.
>It’s hard to get Corbyn to admit to mistakes as leader. “What I regret most was trusting in people who clearly were not going to be supportive or loyal,” he says. “I wish now I’d removed far more people from offices within the party… not so much Parliament, I can’t control that so easily — but within the party.”
Starmer may not quite have succeeded in building a strong “pro-Labour vote” but at the least he didn’t turn the situation into an “anti-Labour vote” for the Tories, which is what Corbyn ended up doing during his time as leader.
That’s how May got voted in but the other way round!
Labour is a broad church of centre left to left wing groups. This is unfair analysis and smacks of bitterness.
Ideology without the means to express it through power is pointless. Blair knew it and Starmer does too. Elections are won in the centre
A win is a win, which is more than Corbyn ever did for the Labour Party. The anti Tory sentiment was there in 2019 and 2017, but Corbyn couldn’t appeal to these voters because the British public was not interested in what he was offering. Starmer can.
To be fair that’s what this vote is for me. It’s not for a party, but against the conservatives.
They’ve been in power too long, and have their own set of rules, and are only interested in making themselves richer, rather than doing anything actually useful for the country.
Not to mention with them we’ve had Brexit forced on us, and had costs sky rocket, putting the country in possibly the worst condition it’s possibly ever been in.
He’s not wrong, this isn’t the New Labour moment of 1997. We’ve been brought to this election through total political malaise. Where even the ruling party doesn’t have it in them to actually do it anymore.
It will put a dent in turnout figures I feel.
Where has he been for the last 10 years? Corbyn was running on an anti-Tory vote too. Half of politicking here is “We’re not the other guys”
>Keir Starmer will win on an anti-Tory vote, not a pro-Labour one
Sounds good to me
Corbyn’s domestic policies were fairly well liked, iirc, but they weren’t liked coming from *him*.
He was a *very* easy target for the Tories. Likewise, his foreign policies were absolutely awful. Viewing him through the lense of the years that followed 2017/2019, I don’t want to imagine how he might have handled Ukraine.
And given the massive failure Corbyn and his supporters led the party to, is Starmer horrible for wanting them gone? I don’t think so, for all I agree there *should* be a left-wing (moderate, at least) arm to the party.
At this point Labour could remain silent and still win. This country, save for a few ultra rich elites I guess, are fucking done with the tories. I’d vote for roadkill before I’d vote Tory after the shitshow that has been their governance.
True. But labour lost under Corbyn because of Corbyn.
The tories won the last election on an anti-Corbyn vote.
I’ll take the win, let’s just get these sodding Tories out.
The Standard hates Labour and that is why they want to interview Corbyn. Corbyn hates Starmer and ‘centrist Labour’ and that is why he agreed to the interview.
And to think, if only we had Corbyn we could be getting another Tory win on an anti-Labour vote.
He’s just bitter because he got trounced on an anti-Corbyn vote, not a pro-Tory one
Yes he will.
Why didn’t you?
Did we have “good” Tories in 2017 and 2019?
Well said! And it’s very risky.
As soon as the disappointments start to pile up, because the Tories fucked the country forever with Brexit, those voters will migrate to the far right.
He’s right. While I’ve something to vote AGAINST, Labour hasn’t given me much of anything to vote FOR. Still voting the Tory thieves out, though.
I’d be more concerned about keeping your own seat, jez.
Corbyn’s “pro Labour” vote was the biggest wipeout loss for Labour since before the war, Starmer is on track to deliver the Tories their biggest election crushing in their history. What are we even talking about?
Being an ideologically pure loser who gives the people you hate ultimate power to do everything you despise doesn’t make you virtuous, it makes you naive. That is pretending for a moment that it’s the reason why too, which with the number of policy flips involved makes that dubious.
Nobody wanted Corbyn’s idea of Britain and the electorate were anti Labour because of it, Corbyn broke the record at one point for the worst approval rating in recorded history (since surpassed) at -60%. Grow up and accept it.
Kind of like how Tories won on an anti Corbyn Labour vote
Dear oh dear indeed better call the whole thing off then
But he’ll win. As wonderful as a Corbyn manifesto is to read, it did the square root of fuck all for the most poor and desperate in our society. If Starmer’s government helps one person live one day longer, or gain one more qualification, or eat one more meal, it will have infinitely more practical value than all the virtue-spaffing that magic grandad has wasted the last thirty years on.
Love him or hate him, he’s not wrong. There’s a lot of people in the working class who feel Starmer’s Labour just doesn’t fit with their values anymore. And with the voting system as messed up as it is, a lot of people are voting Labour simply because the choice in their consituancy is them or more Tories. Starmer has said a lot of crap I don’t believe in, and at this point the only reason I am voting labour is because my local MP is Labour and I want them to keep their seat.
Yet again Corbyn shows why he was a god-awful party leader.
The Tories are an absolute mess now, and that definitely is the main reason Starmer is polling so well. That much is true. But Starmer has the good sense to let the focus remain on the disarray in the Conservative Party. When the ruling party hands you a gift, you take it.
When Corbyn led Labour into 2017 and 2019, the elections became a referendum on peoples’ opinions on Jeremy Corbyn–not on the many years of failed Tory leadership. He would have done better to just be an acceptable alternative rather than “win the argument” but lose votes. You can’t govern if you’re too toxic to voters to win an election.
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I’m unsure if this is true but I read somewhere that starmer is projected to win more seats but with less votes than labour did under Jeremy Corbyn… Because of the vote split between more parties. Not verified it though so take with a pinch of salt
>Leaving Labour has been a wrench. “It’s been my life,” he says. He’d wanted to stand for the party but couldn’t, having been blocked for saying that antisemitism during his time as Labour leader was exaggerated. After he announced he would run alone, he was told he’s lost his party membership too. That put an end to a more than five-decade journey, as he joined Labour before England won the 1966 World Cup. Old habits die hard: he refers to Nargund as the “official” Labour candidate (you get the sense he feels like the unofficial but real one), and still sometimes says “we” and “us” about the party. Corbyn says a recent door-knocking outing became a therapy session for a group who feel Labour has changed. “Many people around the country whose whole lives have revolved around aspects of the party now find themselves suspended, removed and so on, and they feel quite sad about it,” he says.
>For Corbyn, Sir Keir’s Labour is less of a “broad church” even than Sir Tony Blair’s in 1997. He points out that the first Blair cabinet included Robin Cook, Chris Mullin and others, all of the Left wing. “Blair wasn’t as authoritarian,” he says. “I remember arguments with the whips office many times during New Labour… but they didn’t approach the whole thing as a threat.”
I don’t particularly like Corbyn or the hard-left cult of personality that surrounds him, but I agree with his point about the need for further left-wing voices to have some representation in Labour.
Maybe when this campaign is behind us, cooler heads can prevail and he can be quietly let back in his a Labour member, or even granted a peerage.
>A lot has happened since 2019 — the implosions of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have made the Tories much weaker. Last week, Corbyn said he’d “absolutely” beat Rishi Sunak if he were still Labour leader today. “Be honest about it: it’s much more to do with an anti-Tory vote than a pro-Labour vote,” he says. “People are fed up with poverty.” Of course, that doesn’t fully explain why Corbyn lost less than five years ago.
>It’s hard to get Corbyn to admit to mistakes as leader. “What I regret most was trusting in people who clearly were not going to be supportive or loyal,” he says. “I wish now I’d removed far more people from offices within the party… not so much Parliament, I can’t control that so easily — but within the party.”
Starmer may not quite have succeeded in building a strong “pro-Labour vote” but at the least he didn’t turn the situation into an “anti-Labour vote” for the Tories, which is what Corbyn ended up doing during his time as leader.
That’s how May got voted in but the other way round!
Labour is a broad church of centre left to left wing groups. This is unfair analysis and smacks of bitterness.
Ideology without the means to express it through power is pointless. Blair knew it and Starmer does too. Elections are won in the centre
A win is a win, which is more than Corbyn ever did for the Labour Party. The anti Tory sentiment was there in 2019 and 2017, but Corbyn couldn’t appeal to these voters because the British public was not interested in what he was offering. Starmer can.
To be fair that’s what this vote is for me. It’s not for a party, but against the conservatives.
They’ve been in power too long, and have their own set of rules, and are only interested in making themselves richer, rather than doing anything actually useful for the country.
Not to mention with them we’ve had Brexit forced on us, and had costs sky rocket, putting the country in possibly the worst condition it’s possibly ever been in.
He’s not wrong, this isn’t the New Labour moment of 1997. We’ve been brought to this election through total political malaise. Where even the ruling party doesn’t have it in them to actually do it anymore.
It will put a dent in turnout figures I feel.
Where has he been for the last 10 years? Corbyn was running on an anti-Tory vote too. Half of politicking here is “We’re not the other guys”
>Keir Starmer will win on an anti-Tory vote, not a pro-Labour one
Sounds good to me
Corbyn’s domestic policies were fairly well liked, iirc, but they weren’t liked coming from *him*.
He was a *very* easy target for the Tories. Likewise, his foreign policies were absolutely awful. Viewing him through the lense of the years that followed 2017/2019, I don’t want to imagine how he might have handled Ukraine.
And given the massive failure Corbyn and his supporters led the party to, is Starmer horrible for wanting them gone? I don’t think so, for all I agree there *should* be a left-wing (moderate, at least) arm to the party.
At this point Labour could remain silent and still win. This country, save for a few ultra rich elites I guess, are fucking done with the tories. I’d vote for roadkill before I’d vote Tory after the shitshow that has been their governance.
True. But labour lost under Corbyn because of Corbyn.
The tories won the last election on an anti-Corbyn vote.
I’ll take the win, let’s just get these sodding Tories out.
The Standard hates Labour and that is why they want to interview Corbyn. Corbyn hates Starmer and ‘centrist Labour’ and that is why he agreed to the interview.
And to think, if only we had Corbyn we could be getting another Tory win on an anti-Labour vote.
He’s just bitter because he got trounced on an anti-Corbyn vote, not a pro-Tory one
Yes he will.
Why didn’t you?
Did we have “good” Tories in 2017 and 2019?
Well said! And it’s very risky.
As soon as the disappointments start to pile up, because the Tories fucked the country forever with Brexit, those voters will migrate to the far right.
He’s right. While I’ve something to vote AGAINST, Labour hasn’t given me much of anything to vote FOR. Still voting the Tory thieves out, though.
I’d be more concerned about keeping your own seat, jez.
Corbyn’s “pro Labour” vote was the biggest wipeout loss for Labour since before the war, Starmer is on track to deliver the Tories their biggest election crushing in their history. What are we even talking about?
Being an ideologically pure loser who gives the people you hate ultimate power to do everything you despise doesn’t make you virtuous, it makes you naive. That is pretending for a moment that it’s the reason why too, which with the number of policy flips involved makes that dubious.
Nobody wanted Corbyn’s idea of Britain and the electorate were anti Labour because of it, Corbyn broke the record at one point for the worst approval rating in recorded history (since surpassed) at -60%. Grow up and accept it.
Kind of like how Tories won on an anti Corbyn Labour vote
Dear oh dear indeed better call the whole thing off then
But he’ll win. As wonderful as a Corbyn manifesto is to read, it did the square root of fuck all for the most poor and desperate in our society. If Starmer’s government helps one person live one day longer, or gain one more qualification, or eat one more meal, it will have infinitely more practical value than all the virtue-spaffing that magic grandad has wasted the last thirty years on.
Love him or hate him, he’s not wrong. There’s a lot of people in the working class who feel Starmer’s Labour just doesn’t fit with their values anymore. And with the voting system as messed up as it is, a lot of people are voting Labour simply because the choice in their consituancy is them or more Tories. Starmer has said a lot of crap I don’t believe in, and at this point the only reason I am voting labour is because my local MP is Labour and I want them to keep their seat.
Yet again Corbyn shows why he was a god-awful party leader.
The Tories are an absolute mess now, and that definitely is the main reason Starmer is polling so well. That much is true. But Starmer has the good sense to let the focus remain on the disarray in the Conservative Party. When the ruling party hands you a gift, you take it.
When Corbyn led Labour into 2017 and 2019, the elections became a referendum on peoples’ opinions on Jeremy Corbyn–not on the many years of failed Tory leadership. He would have done better to just be an acceptable alternative rather than “win the argument” but lose votes. You can’t govern if you’re too toxic to voters to win an election.