When faced with the most basic challenges, it flounders. It keeps ceding the ground to its opponents. It trashes its own base while pouring political effort into appealing to people who will never vote for it. It treats us like idiots, so makes people feel like idiots if they voted for it.
bsky.app/profile/koka...
In short, if Starmer's Labour Party had set out to destroy its chances of re-election, and roll out the red carpet for Reform, it could not have done a better job.
It's so embarrassing watching them twitch and flail around, stepping on every rake and scoring every own-goal. Truly cringe-inducing stuff. bsky.app/profile/glen...
Sad, but true. Winter fuel allowance NI contributions for employers Benefits, PIP All these started the decline of support for Labour. Fromage and Reform “cleverly” jumping on people’s genuine concerns re their concerns of migrants being placed in hotels. This has clobbered them.
The other thing is that people mostly didn’t care about the issue until Farage started spouting off about it and pretending it was some huge existential crisis to the very fabric of the country.
It used to be the EU. Now it’s immigrants. Next it’ll be “the queers”. And it won’t stop, because he needs someone to be angry about for his brand of politics to work.
Always got to have scapegoats.
I voted Labour in 2024 and I've regretted that decision almost every day since. The government we got is far from what I imagined. The bar was low: don't be as shit as the Tories were; yet they've barely managed to keep above it.
The great problem is… who else? The idea that Reform would be able to do better is frankly laughable, and FPTP means that if you vote for anyone else you just increase the chances of someone you dislike even more winning the seat.
Oh there isn't a chance in hell I'd vote for Reform. But I am not voting Labour next time around unless there really is no option. But there are options there and if sufficient numbers realise it too, then FPTP doesn't have to be the electoral prison it currently is.
I’d much rather not have to vote tactically, and be able to vote for the people I actually want without worrying about splitting the vote. And for that we need electoral reform and some variant of PR.
People always say "what if we have PR and Reform gets a majority?" but they never ask "what if we don't switch to PR and they get a majority?" which is a worse scenario in my opinion, and somewhat likely too. At least in the former it's more likely a coalition can be formed to stop them
Also if we switch to PR and Reform get a majority then it’s clear they genuinely have widespread support and should be treated as such. Basing electoral systems on how likely they are to stop a popular party gaining power isn’t a sane position for anyone to hold.
That's the entire basis for the Scottish electoral system; and it didn't work.
With the added bonus that if they get seats but not a majority it becomes painfully obvious how much they suck at the job.
If Labour want to put the brakes on Reform they need to implement electoral reform. Something like STV would be preferable, so people can rank candidates to express opinions like “I’d prefer Lib Dem, failing that Green, and if not then Labour, but I’ll see a Tory in the seat before Reform”.
Me too, I am very much a fan of electoral reform and think it is badly needed.
And destroy the Labour Party.
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social I don't think, at this point, that it's unreasonable to suspect that's exactly what they're trying to do. Some of us haven't forgotten how the Labour right were overjoyed to *lose* in 2019.
They were so disappointed in 2017 when the results started to come in. Not the wipe out they had worked for (they did), Corbyn almost wiped out May's majority so she had to bung the DUP. There's a video somewhere with their disappointment on show.
There's also the WhatsApp transcripts from the leaked reports. To the tune of 'we worked so hard for nothing, stiff upper lip we need to put a good face on and at least the shorting money will be good' to paraphrase it all.
Secretly diverting money to a shadow camaign, diverting funds to seats with big majorities. Unite asked the questions and submitted it to the Forde inquiry, those questions were never answered.
Hoping the @greenparty.org.uk and @libdems.org.uk fill the void left by @teamlabouruk.bsky.social who are now electoral toast Tactical voting 🗳️ to stop Fartrage here we come ✊🏼 @eddavey.libdems.org.uk @zackpolanski.bsky.social @carladenyer.bsky.social @libdemdaisy.bsky.social @josiah.writes.news
One feels Starmer will have a lucrative post-premiership career at the American Enterprise Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and as an oil and gas lobbyist Wasn't much of a Corbyn fan but how could Labour be so unimaginably worse than that
Why the "if" in this sentence? It seems pretty obvious to me that that's exactly what he set out to do.
😢
The thread on one page: skywriter.blue/pages/did:pl...
As in Germany the coalition of CDU & SPD (before the election even some Greens) - or in US many Democrats (there are many more similar examples in Europe, all around the world & in my country, Switzerland). Why do they repeatedly not understand?
It's naive to place trust in Starmer and his inner circle. He's a conservative cuckoo in the nest, who conspired with others to take over the Labour Party. Corbyn was their biggest coup. Kangaroo courts expelled party workers on fake charges of racism / anti-Semitism, leaving a rump of sycophants
Maybe it is just as simple to assume that if it quacks like a duck the chances are it is in fact a duck, maybe facism is the intention of Starmers handlers
Bookmarked this thread for any time I encounter a Gavin Newsom stan on bsky.
If only we put as much effort into dealing with child poverty as we do arguing about small boats then we would be a long way towards eradicating child poverty. All this small boat stuff is a distraction from dealing with the real issues we face.
You can't help but conclude that it's all by design. The alternative is that we're governed by people with zero political nuance, strategy or common sense. And as it keeps repeating itself here and across the world it would appear a strategy not a mistake.
I can't think of a better term for it than suicide politics. It's not just the humiliation of its own voters, it's the gifting of awareness and credibility to its enemy for free. How much easier could they make it? And what's the next nail in its own coffin move? A snap election right now?
It is. People give me grief for my handle, but this neoliberal nihilism leads nowhere but collapse, and honestly, I just hope it goes before it takes us all with it.
It won't go of its own accord, that's for sure.
Even when it collapses in on itself, the self-interested interests keep inventing inequitable ways to prop it up like it's still alive. Long deceased, by any other measure. So it does seem that an intervention is required to lop off the fabricated extension strategies.
Its like Hydra, you cut off one head, and several grow in its stead.
That's a good analogy, Monika. More sensibly, though, the Hydra rarely lopped its own head off.
The only hope I can find in the world at the moment is that the US might destroy itself before it destroys everyone else.
Me too. I think Balkanisation/secession is one of our only hopes.
Is Obi-Wan Kenobi one of our other hopes? Sorry about these silly films references, I don't know what's wrong with me this morning.
I still haven't been insulted in person yet by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, so we're still OK for a bit. How about that for a niche reference? (Thanks to Sean for the reminder on the name a couple of moments ago.)
Neoliberal nihilism is a cracking term. It is indeed self defeating and will inevitably bring itself down under its own weight of greed, exploitation & debt. What I still strive for is whatever we can do to sustain our shared biosphere and its natural systems long enough to outlast its destruction.
They realise this, which is why they wish to replace it with corporate fascism.
I occasionally get the sense that they'd concrete over it all if they could.
I think of it more as McSweeney's party. Starmer clearly enjoys doing the lawyerly international stuff but has little interest in UK politics, or saving the economy. To be fair this is exactly why McSweeney selected Starmer for his project. Wake up Labour - you are making it too easy for Farage!
It is bizarre behaviour from Starmer, to say the least. The evidence that the Reform style language & some dreadful policies is alienating many Labour supporters, driving us away, is overwhelming yet he persists. Not everything they do is bad, but he's grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.
Today we hear he is wresting policy control from the Treasury, not a bad thing, but he really should be wresting policy control from the reliably toxic Home Office. That would be a positive start. Hiring a transphobic ex-Sun chappie as a comms director hasn't helped. As for 'blue labour', yuck.
I feel totally betrayed by Starmer et al although the MP we have now is light years better than her Tory predecessor. The joy and optimism I felt when she won her seat has completely gone. My interest and engagement with politics is practically dead. I feel politically neutered.
At what point do you acknowledge that its not shit strategy, it's who they ARE? They have a huge majority, could have done pretty much anything they wanted. What they wanted was to degrade & punish the most vulnerable - refugees, poor ppl, the disabled, trans ppl - and create a police state
