Home » Who is Keir Starmer and why might he be the next PM of Great Britain?

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Who is Keir Starmer and why might he be the next PM of Great Britain? — 8 Comments

  1. If the two major parties of the UK actually represent ideological right and left–I don’t know of my knowledge how well they do, as opposed to grift–then voters don’t have other choices, given their strong party system, of disciplining one team without throwing an election to the other.

    Conservatives always used to call this the “Democratic plantation” when talking about the black vote: the Dems say “whaddya gonna do vote Republican”? If British voters never vote Labor because Labor is worse, then they are on the Tory plantation and the Tories can get as bad as they like provided they stay slightly less bad than Labor.

    The UK is not stuck with their Parliament for a fixed term, anyway: snap elections can get called at any time which can change things up and throw one majority out. In the US we’re stuck with every two years for the House and 1/3 of the Senate, and the House and Senate don’t choose the President anyway.

    But I think the average UK voter probably prefers things farther to the Left than we would here in the US, if we were up to us, which it increasingly isn’t. “Left” and “Labor” and “Socialism” are just not as pejorative over there…

    Americans do have other strategies available because our party system doesn’t work the way theirs does: the two parties are legally entrenched but there’s more bottom-up selection of candidates. It is very much in the interest of our two parties to claim that you have no choice but to stick with the party’s candidates unless you want to make things worse. Of course, they WOULD say that. But we are able to change the compositions of our parties from the bottom up, though it’s very hard work and sometimes you lose a seat here and there.

  2. Labour are leftists, but I don’t know what ideology drives the Tories these days.

  3. What has happened is that the Conservative leadership has finally convinced their base that they will NEVER follow policies the base wants. So the only possible solution is to replace them. And that will take a total wipeout at the polls. There is a split on the British right over whether the Tories are still worth taking over, or whether a whole new party is needed. But in any case, the existing leadership has to go.

    Note that they don’t have primaries as we do.

  4. “I’ll show them! I’ll vote for something far worse!”

    As an alternative, they can “show them” nothing and vote for same-old same-old. Some will, but the choice is unappetizing to say the least.

  5. Why do I read “Keir Starmer” and hear an echo back “Der Sturmer“?

  6. What Eeyore said.

    The Tories are utterly and completely worthless. Boris Johnson showed some promise and potential but was narcissistic and let his personal life overwhelm his prime ministership. Since then, it’s been an utter clown show. Liz Truss…PM for about half a second who imploded on take off; and Sunak, who appeals to no one and inspires even fewer.

    Were I a British citizen, I’d likely vote Reform UK. But in any case, the Tories have richly earned a good drubbing. Of course, Labour is vile; it’s as far away from Tony Blair’s party as the Democrats are from Bill Clinton’s. The only positive about Labour is that tinpot Marxist, Anti-Semite Corbyn is long gone. Starmer is a vast improvement.

    But in any case, it doesn’t seem as though British voters are terribly excited about Labour; they just want to punish the Tories. Alas, that’s understandable

  7. The Tory party policies have been useless since the start of Covid. And they’ve shown no indication they’ll get any better.

    A Republican Minnesota legislator, Walter Hudson, has talked about what a single-vote majority means now if it’s a Democrat majority. Last year the Dems pissed away a huge surplus and raised taxes, and this year they shoved through a 1400 page omnibus bill that may not pass constitutional muster–but who knows, since governors appoint justices, and the Republicans have only held the governorship for 8 of the last 28 years.

    According to Hudson, the legislature Democrats are utterly controlled by the far left forces. Moderates, including those who won seats by a few hundred votes, are shut out entirely, told to vote the line or be destroyed by the party aparatchiks. The far left hold no positions of power but it is as if they hold guns to heads of those who do.

    A Democrat state senator was caught breaking into the house of her mother in law. As that single seat majority is in the state senate, Democrats couldn’t lose her vote and hold power. So they blocked all attempts to discipline her until after the session ended, and then announced piously that she should resign.

    Should the Republicans win majorities in the fall, the Democrats know that all their victories are safe, since the governor will veto any attempts to roll them back.

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