If there were to be a very precise summary of Kier Starmer's speech at the Labour Party conference yesterday, it would be that people should keep faith in his Party.
There is one problem with that. As almost every commentary on the speech that I have read suggests, there are still no explanations of what Keir Starmer's government is meant to be about.
Unsurprisingly, as a result, Starmer's appeals are falling on deaf ears. I put this poll on Twitter last night:
Only 70.4 per cent of the 56.8 per cent of respondents who suggested that they voted for Labour in July are sure that they will still vote for the Labour Party.
Of course, this is not scientific, but it strongly implies that amongst those with an interest in Labour politics there is considerable disenchantment with what Starmer is doing. And when he only won 34 per cent of the vote, at most, in July, to lose 30 per cent of that would be enough to see his party tumble out of office next time around.
I would rather this was not the case.
I would rather we had a government with vision in this country.
I would rather it was decidedly social democratic, heavily tinged with a green outlook.
I wish it had the zeal of the reformer that came from its previous protections of the obvious injustices in this country.
And I suspect I am not alone.
Starmer is, and there is no avoiding saying what follows, dull, devoid of ideas, lacking talent as a politician, and so accident pone you almost think that there are no accidents and that there is instead some weird, and so far incomprehensible, plot in play.
Vast numbers of people in England and Wales, in particular, have no one they can really rely upon to represent them at present. The LibDems might be riding high, but there is no obvious policy programme from them to excite anyone. The Greens have as many policies that will alienate people as they have to appeal to some, and the risk of still seeming like a single-issue party is high. And whilst Wales and Scotland have viable alternatives of offer, there is no real such thing as yet in England.
So, of course, I would like Labour to work: there is an important job for it to do. But right now, it is not working. No wonder people are already regretting voting for it, not that I know who those with such regrets would have voted for instead. Maybe I should do a Twitter poll on that, and here too:
If you voted Labour in July and now regret doing so, who would you now vote for instead?
- The Greens (45%, 110 Votes)
- An indepenent (17%, 43 Votes)
- Reform (11%, 26 Votes)
- SNP (9%, 22 Votes)
- LibDems (7%, 18 Votes)
- No one (6%, 16 Votes)
- Plaid Cymru (2%, 6 Votes)
- The Conservatives (2%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 247
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70% would still vote for them. That is why we have a Single Transferable Party. Even here the need somehow to make sense of the Labour Party as a medium of change seems to me merely to confirm the futility of the whole enterprise. I expect nothing of Labour (never have), and consider Britain a hopeless case study in prolonged failure. The only medium of change available in our self-defeating system would be through the electoral system (PR); but what that would produce is not necessarily something you can predict. The Labour Party, a major stakeholder in the Single Transferable Party Cartel with its indispensable partner, the Conservative Party (serving as the opposition pantomime ‘baddie’, without which the political scam they have conjured between them would instantly collapse*); should demonstrate to all that Labour is not interested in changing anything, save offering increasingly baroque window dressing.
* So nervous are Labour of losing this sense of only existing in order to keep the Conservatives out of office, that Reeves, Starmer and Labour are still campaigning in hustings mode, focusing endlessly on how bad it has been under the Conservatives. and how difficult and painful it is to turn it round, and how long it will take**. For the Conservatives, it was keeping Corbyn out of office. It will never end. Neither have anything else to offer, because without that contrast; there is not Cartel. And the Cartel is Everything.
**Spoiler: it will end only in failure, then the Conservatives will be back in power – and so the merry-go-round cartel goes round and round, endlessly going nowhere – save for the vested interests who own both Conservative and Labour.
Good post Mr Warren.
“and consider Britain a hopeless case study in prolonged failure” – correct – with a key failure the assumption that a regulator can regulate complex monopolies.
Real life example.
Farm has a 3phase synchronous generator – exports the elec & uses the heat for chickens (yes I know).
Generator keeps tripping out – because the local rural network is unbalanced & always has been.
Action of the monopoly network operator – zero/nada/zlich. It would cost money.
Action of the regulator – same.
On-line meeting today Electricity Northwest warbling on about strategic this, strategic that – renewables, network investment all lies and nonesense. They were saying identical garbage at an Ofgem meeting in……..2012 – I know cos I was there.
Meanwhile the politicos – all of them………. ALL! – cruise along in total and complete blissful ignorance. Ditto for water, transport, telecoms (BT a byword for rapaciousness)
And as for the Greens – just as bad – gross ignorance of the worst sort.
But all is not lost – at least the money men are “in control”. Bless.
I voted Labour only because they were the only party who could defeat Tory.
I did not want to vote Labour. Green would have been the next best option.
But I would have preferred a socialist party if one had been available.
Corbyn’s new Collective Party might be interesting.
he Green Party has a lot of policies that fit with socialism. What more would you be looking for?
Sound economic policy?
Thank you, Ian.
+ 1.
My constituency: Vale of Aylesbury. Labour MP after 95 years of Tory representation and a variety of Tories, Whigs (including Rothschilds) and others since 1553.
I agree with John S Warren.
I forgot to add that this was my first vote cast, two months short of my 54th birthday. My parents have not voted since the 1975 referendum, but mum, 80 in November, went to the ballot box together.
🙂
I poll clerked and I was interested to see several very mature first time voters along with many youngsters very excited to finally be able to vote. There could have been more who didn’t tell us this was their first time voting. This was in a fairly solid Labour seat albeit with the long term MP retiring.
I believe that, if the people so wish, England , Scotland, Wales and a United Ireland should be individual countries within the EU.
Hence the appeal (to an apparently increasing number of people) of Reform. The danger of Labour failing is that voters will turn to Nigel Farage – with all that entails. Starmer has to succeed over the next 5 years because, assuming the Conservatives make themselves even more unelectable by picking Badenoch as their next leader, the consequences are unthinkable
I spoilt my vote and wrote ‘none of the above’ as there was not even a worthy independent candidate that didn’t sound loony tunes to choose from. Before anyone pipes up about it being a waste – I am responding to the article that proves that any other vote was equally a waste as can be seen by the proof of the pudding already.
If I had been in Islington I’d have definitely voted JC.
If he inspires more to stand with similar ‘independent’ politics – I’d vote and canvass.
In the meantime it is Non Of The Above and increase the number of registered counter spoilt votes as the litmus result, to shove in the faces of the false choices we are offered. Enough pigs in a poke choices.
Thank you, Richard.
Richard: “Starmer is, and there is no avoiding saying what follows, dull, devoid of ideas, lacking talent as a politician, and so accident pone you almost think that there are no accidents and that there is instead some weird, and so far incomprehensible, plot in play.”
I keep thinking that something from the past will catch up with free gear Kier. Readers who watched the recent Panorama expose of Mohamed Fayed, not al Fayed, may recall a victim who alleged assault as a minor. She was 15 at the time. It’s her case that is supposed to have not landed on Starmer’s desk as DPP, according to Starmer. Starmer is a micro manager. I find it hard to believe that a less senior official made the decision not to proceed without referring the case to the top person, especially a micro manager.
If this case causes a stir, I reckon the failures to prosecute Savile and serial rapist Worboys could come to haunt Starmer.
Further to that Fayed case, there’s a lot of this behaviour with all the oligarchs, rainmakers / dealmakers etc. attracted to London and the eco-system (bankers, lawyers, PR, concierge services, realtors etc.) set up to support them and the people eager to ingratiate themselves. Education fees, second homes etc. don’t pay for themselves.
I have my own memories of Fayed
I made the Panorama on his tax affaits many years ago and in the process became the first person ever interviewed on the programme to give their answers to a teleprompter script, so accurate did we have to be!
I am sorry but I think the UK is heading to be a failed state.
I will have to read one of my 20,000 books to sleep tonight.
When most voters believe both the private and public sectors can run surpluses at the same time you know you’re living in an under-developed country going nowhere!
🙂
Having canvassed for Labour in 2019, I then left the party bec of Starmer’s continually egregious behaviour. In May locals & July GE I voted Green (Bristol S – a deprived ward in v safe Labour seat).
10k of us voted Green (+20%) 6k for Reform (+10%), Labour vote crashed from 27,895 in 2019, to 18k (-9%), and the Greens are now largest party on the council, & of course, defeated Thangham Debbonaire in Bristol Central.
I feel that depriving Labour of my vote was the ONLY way I could send a message they would listen to. They aren’t interested in my opinions, & they say they don’t want my support, indeed, Reeves told us yesterday that Labour was not a party of protest, & Starmer made it clear in his reaction to being interrupted
that those of us who worked so hard in 2019 are of no interest to him now. It’s the only one of his statements since 2016 that I have ever taken at face value. I have taken my protest and votes elsewhere.
I did the same in Sheffield Central, also a very safe Labour seat, where the result was similar with the Greens significantly increasing their share of the vote. But that was an easy choice in a constituency where the Tories had no chance.
Despite all the rhetorical pretence is it not close to the truth that Starmer has completed turning the Labour Party into a banana republic party with little to no internal member policy accountability and not very much morality?
I voted SNP, as I have done since I got the vote in 2014. Fortunately I live where the SNP can run candidates. I’d be interested to see a poll of people in Scotland who voted Labour in July. Wonder if they are regretting taking the wrong route to ‘get rid of the Tories.’
The trouble is, for the SNP, that policy didn’t work – we still have 5 (down just 1) Tory MPs. Labour was always the ‘enemy’ in Scotland, yet we (I am an SNP member) still talk of co-operating with the new Westminster government, this when LINO intend to continue to subvert the devolved Scottish government at every turn – continuing Tory policies.
The SNP leadership never cease to baffle me.
We should also note that the state is anti-socialist. The government’s own PREVENT counter-terrorism training identifies “socialists” as a cause for concern, and grouped with “communists”.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.” — Attributed to the prominent German pastor Martin Niemöller.
Labour has also come for the Left, and kicked them out of the party.
Source:
“Terrorist Narratives: The Biases in ‘Prevent’ Training Show How Counter-Extremism is Politicised” (19 Oct 2023), Byline Times, https://bylinetimes.com/2023/10/19/terrorist-narratives-the-biases-in-prevent-training-show-how-counter-extremism-is-politicised/
I don’t regret voting for Labour last July, despite holding my nose. There was no other party capable of removing the despicable Brexit Drax for South Dorset. Drax has gone and I hope for ever.
Sadly no other party attracts me in your list – because no other is trying to instruct the populace on a proper alternative economic practice.
So your inquiry does not seem well constructed. I appear to be right twice – somewhat unusual for me!
Colonel Smithers wrote:-
Richard: “Starmer is, and there is no avoiding saying what follows, dull, devoid of ideas, lacking talent as a politician, and so accident pone you almost think that there are no accidents and that there is instead some weird, and so far incomprehensible, plot in play.”
I don’t know about incomprehensible but there is definitely something weird viz a viz the juxtaposition of Alex Salmond/Nicola Sturgeon and Keir Starmer/Rachel Reeves.
Alex Salmond – economics. Nicola Sturgeon – failed lawyer
Keir Starmer – failed lawyer. Rachel Reeves – economics
To my admittedly warped mind it’s pretty obvious.
The bold Rachel has warned the less than bold Keir
“If you don’t do exactly as I say, you’ll end up like the unfortunate Mr Salmond and we know what happened to him, don’t we”
Is it any wonder the hapless Sir Keir is nervous and stammering.
Rachel has boldly gone where only ignorant, group-thinking idiots would follow!
Richard is there any reason why you omitted the Communist Party from your poll. I don’t know about England but I just have an inkling they may resurface elsewhere as a last resort.
Was that meant to be a sensible question?
Why on earth would I refer to the Communist Party?
Sorry asking for a friend. Guess that’s what I get for forwarding your blog to a left wing activist
I note Richard’s comment about the Green Party not having a proper economic policy.
News is that their Finance & Economics working group is finalising a new economics policy that will be presented at its next national conference. There is great support for Richard’s Taxing Wealth Report 2024 and MMT among the members of the working group that met at the GP Conference in Manchester in early september.
A new economics spokesperson will replace Molly Scot-Cato who is standing down.
This sounds like good news