National News Sir Keir Starmer

[m]

Good - if Labour divide themselves up into Centre Left and Far Left, at the same time as the Conservatives are basically dividing up between Centre Right and Far Right (Reform), whilst the Lib Dems hold a sort of intellectual tree hugger centre ground, then maybe you'll end up with a situation where five parties start to split the vote, instead of just two.

Then the UK will be in a position where debate, compromise and coalition building are a necessity, and one step closer to PR.

Much better than the Blue, no Red, no Blue, no Red of the past hundred years.

Yeah, I agree.

A non-whipped PR with MPs voting on their conscience would be the dream.

 

[lodeyellow]

Absolutely. This would be great for British politics.

It depends on one’s perspective. It would be an absolute disaster for the Labour Party, as was Corbyn’s leadership of that party a few years ago - which helped Brexit to be delivered, put Boris Johnson into Downing Street and emasculated the liberal, One Nation wing of the Conservative Party.

There’s bound to be some sort of alignment in UK politics over the next few years, but unfortunately I can’t see any further than a possible coalition between Reform and Jenrick-led Tories which would certainly take power if there was a split in the “progressive” (I use the word loosely) vote resulting from a new Corbynista party.

 

[The Voice Of Reason]

He would be an excellent candidate, but I think you have to be an MP first. I'm not sure what Labour rules are, but Jo Swinson was forced to step as leader of Lib Dems after she lost her seat.

Having said that Nicola Sturgeon was never an MP.

You have to be an MP but that's easily done if required.

 

[Morris Oxford]

Must admit I thought the far left would try and oust Starmer from within in the Labour Party rather than form a splinter party, of course they may still try to do that, keep your eye on what Angela Rayner says and does, or doesn’t as the case may be.

Ian Middleton reminds me of Corbyn in some ways, a perennial student protester, whole social life based around meetings, planning protests, and making banners. When push comes to shove neither will actually achieve anything meaningful, just an irritant to others who want to get on, progress and do something positive with their lives.

 

[QR]

You’ve posted earlier about your own personal issues, for which I genuinely felt some sympathy.

Rather dispiriting that you feel it’s perfectly OK to have a laugh at someone else who might have a personal issue.

I agree with you 100% but she really shouldn't have been in the HoC. Surely it could only make a difficult personal issue worse as people were always going to wring every last political advantage and p**s take out of it. Ashamedly even I chuckled at this.

 

[lodeyellow]

Beth Rigby also said on Sky News this morning that Rachel Reeves should’ve stayed away from the Commons on Wednesday.

But if she had’ve done, and with Starmer under so much pressure, wouldn’t that have given rise to loads of questions and rumours about her not giving him support?

 

[Sheik Djibouti]

Must admit I thought the far left would try and oust Starmer from within in the Labour Party rather than form a splinter party, of course they may still try to do that, keep your eye on what Angela Rayner says and does, or doesn’t as the case may be.

Ian Middleton reminds me of Corbyn in some ways, a perennial student protester, whole social life based around meetings, planning protests, and making banners. When push comes to shove neither will actually achieve anything meaningful, just an irritant to others who want to get on, progress and do something positive with their lives.

And allotmenting . . .

Maybe this is the Labour version of Farage leaving the Tories all those years ago - pretty insignificant at the time. Or maybe it's more akin to Anna Soubry and the Change UK splinter group during Bojo's reign

Whilst the Tory lurch to the right trying to chase down Farage has been palpable, I am not sure that the Labour party will mirror them and lurch to the left in search of all those potential lost votes to Corbyn and a momentum-style movement. They will try and continue to occupy the middle ground and be a bit vanilla/non-threatening, whilst the "rabid fringes" of UK politics take great chunks out of them (and they of course don't help themselves if they KEEP on making bad choices when it comes to policy with no demonstrable improvement of enough people's lot if life). Of course the very same opposite ends of the spectrum will continue to tell everyone how s**t their lots are in life and that only they have the answers to all their ills, when the reality is that NOBODY has the answer to all your ills and the utopian promised land they say they offer is an absolute fantasy. But desperation leads people to make rash choices . . .

 

[Basham Wonderland]

Beth Rigby also said on Sky News this morning that Rachel Reeves should’ve stayed away from the Commons on Wednesday.

But if she had’ve done, and with Starmer under so much pressure, wouldn’t that have given rise to loads of questions and rumours about her not giving him support?

If they just described it as an unexpected family matter, I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelid.

(I don't think it was a family matter - perhaps she had her latest dodgy expenses claim turned down).

 

[QR]

Beth Rigby also said on Sky News this morning that Rachel Reeves should’ve stayed away from the Commons on Wednesday.

But if she had’ve done, and with Starmer under so much pressure, wouldn’t that have given rise to loads of questions and rumours about her not giving him support?

It would, but I'm the same way I have heard Bob Vylan's name in the last 24 hours it wouldn't have lasted.

 

[Sheik Djibouti]

Beth Rigby also said on Sky News this morning that Rachel Reeves should’ve stayed away from the Commons on Wednesday.

But if she had’ve done, and with Starmer under so much pressure, wouldn’t that have given rise to loads of questions and rumours about her not giving him support?

I agree, I don't think Rachel Reeves had much choice other than to be in the HOC. Maybe we have got used to flaky politicians cracking and running for the hills at the first sight of danger/difficulty, rather than staying the course and trying to see it through, no matter how choppy the water gets.

And maybe that is a sign of the true motivation of the individual. Is it because self-preservation comes first, or because they truly believe in what they are trying to do and want to see it through.

She must be used to criticism by now as there's been enough of it over the last 12 months. Undoubtedly some of it justified, but an awful lot of it rather sinister and with more than just a bit of a misogynistic undertone.

We'd all love politicians to be better, more honest and more competent and to at least uphold and embody the well established Nolan principles of standards in public life. Many try, many don't and there are many that are a damn sight worse than Rachel Reeves or pretty much anyone on the Labour front bench in that respect.