Revolving door politics

Galaxy

It isn't I don't think, unless there was a change of leadership of both reform and conservatives.

Do you not think that is also possible?

icanhandthemback

*Oreo*, why does it have to be the sole blame of the politicians, in this case Starmer? The public play their part too. They have differing expectations and nobody can really fulfil them. The thirst for drama on the 24 hour news coverage, the social media dialogue and so forth are all playing their part too.

Is this all the same for other Countries?

One day if have more time, I would look into this.

The thirst for drama on the 24 hour news coverage

I thought that too.
Until recently, when I looked up when 24 hour news coverage came in.

1995!

The BBC brought it in to rival Sky who was already doing it.

It isn't I don't think, unless there was a change of leadership of both reform and conservatives.

MayBee70

David49

No chancellor is going to be popular raising taxes or restricting spending but thats what needs to be done, if the UK is going to become economically sustainable. Reeves hasn't been moved because Starmer agrees with their policies

That is not the problem with Starmer it's the lack of loyalty amongst his MPs who want a more radical socialist leader, Red Ed or Red Angela would suit them fine.

I think their plan was always to get elected via Starmer and then replace him.

What happened at the GE was Reform split the Tory vote and let Labour in, locally it was Liberal , so a large number of new MPs joined the Commons that did not share Starmers aims, now that is proving fatal for him.

Whatever happens now, a Labour move to the left is going to be very short lived and even less popular than today, at the next GE a Tory/Reform coalition is almost certain.

Highest growth in the 3 months to March....

TerriBull

I didn't vote for Labour, but I really hope Starmer doesn't go, better the devil you know are my thoughts. I think he's been disappointing apart from when he stood up to Trump. Rachel Reeves has been a positively awful Chancellor imo, she's reeked havoc on business and the effects of which are catastrophic.

How has she reeked havoc on business though? Our economy had the highest growth to March of all the large economies according to the BBC / figures announced today. I know this is just one eg.

Sometimes young people have got into employment on zero hours contracts or very part-time work in a few different jobs (because they just want to leave school, enjoy themselves & earn some cash to do so I assume). This is more difficult because zero hours contracts have gone & the NI changes did hit hardest where businesses emplyed a lot of part-timers rather than a less full-time. But there are still places left in apprenticeships that don't get taken up, & those trades are in demand. It's less flexible than zero-hours & not everyone will get in, but long-term it's better for the young person's lifetime earnings or chance of starting thir own business (unless they want to be an influencer or get into the music business, but not many make it).

David49

No chancellor is going to be popular raising taxes or restricting spending but thats what needs to be done, if the UK is going to become economically sustainable. Reeves hasn't been moved because Starmer agrees with their policies

That is not the problem with Starmer it's the lack of loyalty amongst his MPs who want a more radical socialist leader, Red Ed or Red Angela would suit them fine.

I think their plan was always to get elected via Starmer and then replace him.

No chancellor is going to be popular raising taxes or restricting spending but thats what needs to be done, if the UK is going to become economically sustainable. Reeves hasn't been moved because Starmer agrees with their policies

That is not the problem with Starmer it's the lack of loyalty amongst his MPs who want a more radical socialist leader, Red Ed or Red Angela would suit them fine.

Elsi

It's Rachel Reeves that should definitely go the trouble and havoc that woman has caused is dreadful.all she's does is put up taxes every time she opens her mouth

The economic figures released before the Iran war began were improved. Her policies were working. Thats what matters.

Oreo, why does it have to be the sole blame of the politicians, in this case Starmer? The public play their part too. They have differing expectations and nobody can really fulfil them. The thirst for drama on the 24 hour news coverage, the social media dialogue and so forth are all playing their part too.

Starmer doesn’t have credible judgement or act as a strong leader, if he had he would have replaced her ages ago

No. He stands by everyone. Even Mandelson.

It goes without saying that Reeves needs to go at the same time.
Starmer doesn’t have credible judgement or act as a strong leader, if he had he would have replaced her ages ago.

Define normal😄
Starmer is hopeless at being PM, that’s the truth.Good at being a lawyer.
Blaming the public won’t wash, his own MP’s see that he’s hopeless.
As to Labour replacing their PM’s…..they usually don’t it’s rare, it’s the Conservatives who do that as their mechanism for changing PM’s is easier.
To all Labour voters on here, do you want them to remain in power past the next GE? If the answer is yes then Starmer needs to be replaced sooner rather than later.

I think the problem in the last few years has been, our Country is more dishonest.
Which sadly, or especially includes politicians as well.

If Starmer had stood up to that, and not "stood by" his dishonest helpers, then he may have got further than he has.

Got half way through the fb link and agreed with that part.
Not the 2nd part.

Against that backdrop, Starmer’s greatest crime often seems to be that he is… normal.

Uh. No.
And see what he wants to come in. Abolish jury system. Absolutely not.
Id. Absolutely not.

I hate to say this I am a Labour voter but I will be disappointed with anyone who puts their hat in the ring to replace Keir Starmer at this time, he’s not perfect by any means (what Prime Minister ever is?). As a lot of people I’d like things to get better quicker but nothing moves slower than change in legislation etc. I don’t claim to be very knowledgable about politics as many of you are I just feel triggering a leadership contest now will cause chaos.
Just give him more time!

mum2three

I think our whole system is flawed. So often people are forced to choose between a candidate and the party. How many good counsellors lost their seats at the last election because of the party they represented?
I think a committee (if that's the right word) would be better, with debates to decide policies.

Ive been saying that for years. My favourite history teacher once told my class that British voters had lost their way and we should always vote for the candidate in our own constituency that worked best for us and not always vote like the USA where they do vote for a person to be President. She felt that voting the way we were originally supposed to would prevent our Government from being one sided.

I always recall how shocked Churchill was that the British public voted him out after everything he did during WW2. Then they kicked Attlee out after he did more for the British working public than any other single PM. The public is fickle and can't be relied upon even if a government does what is wanted. We'd have a change of government every few weeks, if it responded to every which way public opinion sways.

David49

Delene100

Elsi

It's Rachel Reeves that should definitely go the trouble and havoc that woman has caused is dreadful.all she's does is put up taxes every time she opens her mouth

I have been saying this all along. Pity Starmer failed to see this. Reeves is the cause of all his woes.

To meet the spending that Labour voters want revenue has to be increased, there have been many demands to tax the wealthy. That is what Reeves has done the highest earners and property owners in the UK now pay a lot more tax, as I have pointed out previously that can only be done by taxing a large slice the population. Not the billionaires, those with savings, pensions, property, motorists and businesses, thats exactly what happened.

Labour MPs knew what Starmers policies were before the GE and were elected on those promises, yet now want something entirely different. Whoever replaces Starmer has exactly the same problem, it's only those that have wealth that can be taxed, many of those vote Labour and won't like it.

But they're not the ones who have voted the Labour Party out, although they could be the ones who have paid for the advertising/propaganda, which has influenced voters.

Delene100

Elsi

It's Rachel Reeves that should definitely go the trouble and havoc that woman has caused is dreadful.all she's does is put up taxes every time she opens her mouth

I have been saying this all along. Pity Starmer failed to see this. Reeves is the cause of all his woes.

To meet the spending that Labour voters want revenue has to be increased, there have been many demands to tax the wealthy. That is what Reeves has done the highest earners and property owners in the UK now pay a lot more tax, as I have pointed out previously that can only be done by taxing a large slice the population. Not the billionaires, those with savings, pensions, property, motorists and businesses, thats exactly what happened.

Labour MPs knew what Starmers policies were before the GE and were elected on those promises, yet now want something entirely different. Whoever replaces Starmer has exactly the same problem, it's only those that have wealth that can be taxed, many of those vote Labour and won't like it.

From facebook
With thanks to Andy Fitchet
A long read on my thoughts about the current speculation about Keir’s future.
Keir Starmer is not perfect. No Labour leader ever has been. But if there is one thing British politics does with astonishing consistency, it is this: it builds Labour leaders up just high enough to tear them to pieces the moment they become a genuine threat to the status quo.
We saw it with Gordon Brown. History has already begun rehabilitating Brown, but during his premiership he was caricatured relentlessly — awkward, gloomy, indecisive, “unelected,” somehow both too intellectual and not political enough. Yet Brown led Britain through the global financial crisis with a seriousness and competence that many economists now acknowledge prevented catastrophe. The very people who mocked him later quietly admitted he had been right.
Ed Miliband was ridiculed for eating a bacon sandwich.
Jeremy Corbyn was treated as an existential threat to civilisation itself.
And now Keir Starmer, despite being a cautious centrist by almost any historical Labour standard, is being denounced simultaneously as authoritarian, weak, radical, conservative, elitist and socialist depending on which newspaper one happens to open.
There is something deeply unhealthy about this cycle. Britain has become addicted to permanent outrage politics. We no longer seem capable of allowing governments — particularly Labour governments — to govern without treating every disagreement, every compromise, every awkward interview as evidence of total collapse.
And yet, beneath the noise, there is a government actually doing things.
This Labour government inherited a country battered by fourteen years of instability: collapsing public trust, crumbling infrastructure, stagnant wages, NHS waiting lists, local councils on the edge of bankruptcy, rivers full of sewage, schools literally unsafe because of concrete decay, and an economy that seemed permanently stuck between drift and decline.
And all this after a Conservative period that gave us not stability but chaos.
From 1979 to 2007 Britain had just three Prime Ministers: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair. Agree or disagree with them politically, that was an era of relative governmental continuity.
Now look at the present madness. Since 2016 Britain has lurched from David Cameron to Theresa May to Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak — and if the rumours and plotting continue, we may genuinely end up talking about five Prime Ministers in five years across this political era. That is not healthy democracy. That is systemic instability.
The Conservatives lectured Britain for years about competence and seriousness while cycling through leaders like a reality television programme. One Prime Minister crashed the economy with a mini-budget. Another became synonymous with scandal and dishonesty. Another resigned after gambling on a referendum they barely understood.
Against that backdrop, Starmer’s greatest crime often seems to be that he is… normal.
Calmness now looks suspicious to a political culture addicted to spectacle.
And despite governing in brutally difficult economic conditions, Labour has already begun to shift the tone and direction of the country. Workers’ rights reforms. Greater investment into green energy and infrastructure. Attempts to rebuild relationships with Europe after years of performative hostility. Movement on NHS waiting lists. Action on housing and planning. An industrial strategy that at least recognises Britain needs to produce and build again rather than simply speculate and outsource.
None of this is revolutionary. But perhaps that is precisely the point.
After years of ideological drama and governmental collapse, competence is beginning to look radical.
There is also something profoundly unfair in the expectation placed upon Labour governments. Conservatives are often judged by intentions; Labour is judged by perfection. Tory failure becomes unfortunate reality. Labour failure becomes moral collapse. Conservative U-turns are pragmatism; Labour compromise is betrayal.
Starmer is trying to govern a fractured country in an age where social media rewards fury over patience, purity over progress, and outrage over realism. Every decision alienates somebody because politics now demands impossible ideological totality.
But government is not protest. It is not performance. It is the difficult, compromised, frustrating work of actually running a country.
And perhaps that is what unsettles some commentators most about Starmer. He does not fit the easy caricature. He is not a revolutionary firebrand nor a Thatcherite ideologue. He is a lawyerly, methodical social democrat trying to stabilise a country that has spent nearly a decade politically disintegrating.
And this is precisely why the current political moment matters so much.
Look at the rhetoric emerging from Reform during local election campaigns. Again and again, the message is not simply “vote for us locally” but “get rid of Keir Starmer.” The entire movement feeds off permanent instability, permanent grievance, permanent anger. It thrives when people stop believing democratic institutions can ever work.
But we cannot simply hand them what they want.
Because if every government is torn down within months, if every Prime Minister becomes politically disposable before policies have time to work, then politics itself becomes impossible. Democracy turns into an endless carousel of rage and reaction where no long-term thinking survives.
There is a profound irony here. The same political forces that helped create years of chaos now present themselves as the answer to chaos. The same voices that cheered on division, culture wars and anti-political fury now ask to be trusted as the guardians of stability.
Britain cannot keep governing like this.
A serious country cannot replace leaders every time opinion polls wobble or headlines become difficult. It cannot endlessly confuse turbulence with transformation. It cannot keep rewarding those who profit from public cynicism while punishing those attempting the slow, imperfect work of rebuilding institutions.
That does not mean Labour should avoid scrutiny. Far from it. Democracy requires scrutiny. But scrutiny is different from sabotage.
The truth is that much of the hostility towards Starmer says less about Starmer himself and more about a political culture that is understandably impatient for change but one that can’t seem to get its head around the fact that it takes longer than 22 months to turn around a failing charity, council or football club, let alone turn around a country where every single public service was on its knees.

Oreo it’s not whether he’s done a good job. You won’t find any praise for him from me, but the others haven’t exactly distinguished themselves including those who’ve signed the “out” list.
DD tells me constantly about the latest from their queen of the pothole photoshoots, whilst still excusing herself from action because “we’re not in charge of the council”.

Elsi

It's Rachel Reeves that should definitely go the trouble and havoc that woman has caused is dreadful.all she's does is put up taxes every time she opens her mouth

I have been saying this all along. Pity Starmer failed to see this. Reeves is the cause of all his woes.

I’m a Labour voter and agree with all you say eazybee