They seem to expend a lot of energy talking about immigration for a conversation they want to end. I’ve yet to see any attempt to move the national conversation on to anything else. Did someone mislay the bully pulpit? Has someone checked all the cupboards in No.10?
3 things. 1) they are very bad at comms. 2) In their defence I think the days of any gov setting the agenda are probably over - even Trump can’t and has to just throw a million things out there. 3) Starmer has long since believed the need to reduce immigrant workers - it’s not a short term view.
They’re not. The problem is never comms. It is always the policy or the principal.
Agreed which was my point 3! But I do think they are bad at comms. Like that doesn’t override the policy problem but still .
They’re not! Honestly the “bad at comms” thing is basically always wrong.
That’s even more depressing. I’d much rather they were incompetent rather than racist as a conscience decision.
They're incompetent racists
But good at comms, it’s all so depressing.
Must be a day ending with "y" in God's Own Country
I listen to the ministerial morning media rounds and they land on such obviously bad lines. And I’m not a comms person and maybe I’m suffering delusions of grandeur but there seem to be such obvious lines to take they don’t. Even on bad policy ground. During campaign too.
I think it hasn’t ended because they have nothing else. Can’t talk about growth (there is none) or reform (they can’t be felt yet/legislation hasn’t passed).
The ‘small boat arrivals’ haven’t ended either! They’ve made a choice to keep fanning the flames, rather than steer the national conversation onto other matters, like growth.
The problem with steering the conversation onto growth, specifically, is that it isn't going to take long for someone to say "but don't we need more working age people for this to work?"
Maybe, but I think saying stuff like “we’re focussing on economic growth, not immigration numbers” whenever someone brings up immigration would be a start. As would, I dunno, condemning mob violence and obvious racism rather than encouraging it.
Yeah I mean that does feel like it should be a bar they should be able to trip over while sleepwalking, tbh