Was Keir Starmer's Liverpool conference his moment of glory, just as Neil Kinnock had his at Labour's Sheffield conference in 1992?
A little over a week ago it seemed as if Keir Starmer was riding high and heading for a massive Labour majority in government.
Starmer is now heading a very clearly divided Labour Party having alienated significant parts of its support, not least because of his own inability to make up his mind, accept responsibility, or communicate clearly.
The similarity between this moment and that in 1992, when Neil Kinnock staged a triumphal Labour conference in Sheffield before going on to lose the general election, seems to be uncomfortable for those who think that Starmer is going to have an easy path to office.
Starmer has not fallen over on a beach as yet, as Kinnock once did, or made a complete hash of eating a bacon sandwich, as Ed Miliband did, but he may have done something much worse because his mistakes don't just reveal relatively minor personality issues, but major political flaws.
I am not suggesting that Starmer's mistakes will keep Sunak in office. As yet I can think of almost nothing that might achieve that outcome for the Tories. However, his brand has been tainted far more quickly than he might have expected. What do you think?
Was Keir Starmer's Liverpool conference his moment of glory, just as Neil Kinnock had his at Labour's Sheffield conference in 1992?
Was Keir Starmer’s Liverpool conference his moment of glory, just as Neil Kinnock had his at Labour’s Sheffield conference in 1992?
- I hope so (30%, 161 Votes)
- No (19%, 105 Votes)
- Yes (19%, 102 Votes)
- I don't know (18%, 96 Votes)
- I don't care (14%, 76 Votes)
Total Voters: 540
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People don’t pay that much attention to internal Labour Party politics. He’d have to be caught in flagrante with a rabbit and photographed and with numerous witnesses (bc deep fakes) before anyone who isn’t either rich or stupid would vote Tory instead.
I disagree.
Having written this questioin last night I note his poll rating is down 17% this morning.
I would like to think you are right but I’m weary enough of the English voting with their gut instinct instead of their heads that I default sometimes to cynicism. When even MPs didn’t understand the single market what chance of an engaged and informed electorate?
The prospect of infighting on the left must be warming the cockles of some Tory hearts.
Really? Ex party members do.
Which Liverpool moment are you talking about, Richard? Do you remember Starmer’s Audrey White moment at last year’s conference, being told what she thought of him in a pub?
She appears to follow him round now, and has been on lots of anti-Starmer platforms.
“He’d have to be caught in flagrante with a rabbit and photographed and with numerous witnesses”
Or as Edwin Edwards (Democrat), governor of Louisiana, USA for four four-year terms said, “I have to be caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy not to get re-elected”.
Probably not because a lot of people are frankly too dim to understand that power has to be exercised with morality. Here’s one:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/31/labour-ceasefire-gaza-israel-tear-apart
The issue of a ceasefire in Gaza is a moral not a political one and he has failed miserably.
Or perhaps shown his true colours
Personally, I’ve no idea if he has or not.
The most telling bit of the Liverpool event was how he dealt with the protestor who got on stage. Like the gay Tory who started to try to disagree with the podium I think about a gender identity issue at the Tory conference, there was no room for dissent, no room for something that the Party did not agree with or had not considered.
For me, my worries are beyond Starmer – it’s politics that may have had it’s last hurrah. Politics is in crises. What we’ve got now is top down politics – we are being told what to be concerned about (by politicians who are being funded by vested interests who want to act as influencers) not a popular ground up politics that worries about the planet or that sees both sides of the argument in Israel. It’s good old fashioned fascist Thatcherite ‘them and us’.
It’s a big turn off – that’s my worry. But also war is in the air. That is what happens when politics fails as it is now.
The polls as yet don’t yet show a noticeable dip for Labour – the latest ones have the Lab-Con gap at 20 points. Labour support at the moment is a marriage of convenience, that is very likely to fragment quickly after a Labour win. The Green Party is the likely beneficiary of Labour disaffection going forward – they are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as are the Lib Dems. Only three Tory MPs have signed the motion in the Commons calling for a ceasefire (which is not surprising, but depressing nonetheless).
“Starmer has not fallen over on a beach as yet, as Kinnock once did, or made a complete hash of eating a bacon sandwich, as Ed Miliband did, but he may have done something much worse because his mistakes don’t just reveal relatively minor personality issues”.
I have never been a Labour voter, but I never understood why falling on a beach, or mis-eating a sandwich (Eh? I missed that one), should somehow be politically important. They are obviously trivial; it could happen to anyone, and at some point in life something of the kind has happened to everyone. The sensible response is; so what?
I do understand that in this mangled, perverse, hypocritical country such opportunities for displays of gleeful public schadenfreude are politically important in ending careers, or the chance of forming a government (good grief!); but that merely tells me a lot more about Britain and its culture (a lot more), than it does about Kinnock’s capacity to stay on his feet on a beach.
Agreed
And yet both have been seen as significant – bizarrely
Also ‘Agreed’ – though I would make an exception for Suella Braverman’s treading on a guide dog at the Tory Party Conference . . .
Was conference a moment of glory? I hadn’t noticed.
It was reported recently that he has said he is a Zionist. If that is what he said I don’t think it was very clever. That is going to put him at odds with much of his party and supporters I would have thought.
Of course, being Keir Starmer who knows what he really thinks? He has already lost a great deal of trust capital. I wonder how much he has left or can rekindle. A Labour election victory is never a foregone conclusion – we get Labour governments by default when the Tories are in chaos.
This may be of interest:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-labour-leader-starmer-opens-up-about-his-familys-jewish-traditions/
This is the first I have heard about Keir Starmer’s wife being “Jewish”. This has not been covered in the USA.
However, it is my opinion that being Jewish (see Bernie Sanders) really does not matter to the US electorate of non-MAGAts voters. I may be wrong but this is my opinion. It definitely does not matter in Florida.
You only have to look who his donors are to see his priorities. We all want the Tories gone but he and the party in its current form is not the answer, in fact it worries me a great deal. Purging good people, reneging on pledges and worst of all not calling for a immediate ceasefire in Gaza. I wish people had the courage to vote with their hearts and not tactically or we will never escape this two party system which are both as bad as each other and offer no hope for the future of ordinary people.
“We all want Tories gone” they say but the constant attacks on Starmer and the Labour party are a strange way of going about it.
Labour have the best chance in 13 years to rid the country of the scourge of the Conservative party yet here we are with the centre left doing its best yet again to miss out on power.
The Conservatives are divided as always but in the run-up to general elections they always united in the common cause. They understand power. They know how to win elections. Why can’t the left do the same?
Starmer is not centre left
At best he is centre right
Let’s not pretend otherwise
What about Starmer’s attacks on his own party? Don’t they matter to you any more than they do to him?
If he does what he has done up til now he will suspend 13 of his own frontbenchers for asking for a ceasefire in Gaza.
What about the 200,000+ members who have left because of the way he has treated the party as his own?
Do you know the latest membership card has a union flag and country first on it?
That’s not the labour party I joined – and left.
One good thing is that there is going to be a very strong independent labour party at the next election, which will show voters that you can make your vote count.
“worst of all not calling for a immediate ceasefire in Gaza”
The (USA) view of the diverse group of people I have morning coffee with and after-5:00 pm Happy Hour cocktails with is that a ceasefire needs to be called and agreed to by ALL parties; then if Hamas (and Hezbollah) reneges on the ceasefire agreement then they will have a made a bed they will not be able to get out of with full-on pro-Israel military action proceeding full-steam ahead. This is just a “view”.
“If he does what he has done up til now he will suspend 13 of his own frontbenchers for asking for a ceasefire in Gaza.”
This is something most people (including me) in the USA do not understand about UK parliamentary democracy ; how can you suspend an elected representative?
The Republican party would love to kick George Santos to the curb and many sane Republicans would gladly be rid of Marjorie Taylor Green but there is really is no way to do it other than a voter recall on the local level from which they were elected.
People who are suspended are not thrown out of elected office
They are suspended from the party that they are a member of
It usually prevents them stading again
There are, I think, 17 MPs in this position at present in the UK
Richard,
Thanks for the clarification. I really did not understand but do now.
Unfortunately I think both PSR and Patricia are spot on
“What we’ve got now is top down politics” coupled with “You only have to look who his donors are to see his priorities”
and I think you can see right there what will happen with Labour in power under a right wing morally and ethically blind Starmer leadership.
We will be given exactly what they think we should get.
My only hope is that the Tories are eviscerated in the general election and that Starmer is forced by the party membership to move to the left and dump the donors.
Im not holding my breath
I wouldn’t hold your breath. Starmer’s grip on the party’s administration and processes is lock-tight. Members who step out of line know the fate that awaits them. He has ensured members (many genuinely left wing ones have left anyway, while Jewish ones, especially, have been culled for their socialist sympathies) have little influence: his preference is donors. Those are the ones he courts and will do anything to please. Ask anyone who rambles.
Looking at both his response to whats happening in Gaza and that he wasnt willing to end the ‘two child’ rule it seems to me that he has no, for what of a better word, moral compass.
When faced with a choice of expediency or what is right he has repeatedly chosen expediency
I wonder if history may be about to repeat itself insofar as The Tories won the election in 1992 against the odds. I certainly hope not though as another five years of austerity and robbing of Scotland’s resources will be disastrous