Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts.
I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
> to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast
Not to argue against the point you're making but these aren't good examples. Policing in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are fully devolved and operate independently of the government in Westminster.
True. The modern far right is both a social media and traditional media driven phenomenon, internationally, and I don't have great suggestions for dealing with it other than "maybe the government should boycott Twitter before they ban sixteen year olds from it".
Police has no choice but to arrest people who commit a serious criminal offence on purpose and very publicly. It would undermine their credibility and the rule of law not to arrest them.
This is orthogonal with how police should tackle the violence you mention.
Edit in response to @pjc50's replay below:
The signs are a serious criminal offence. Supporting a proscribed terror organisation is a serious criminal offence according to the law and arrest is unavoidable.
Edit 2: What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such...
The attack on Brieze Norton was a serious criminal offence. The signs are not, no matter how much people want to pretend they are to conflate the two issues.
The police always have a choice as to which crimes they investigate. This is why petty theft in London is almost totally ignored.
(and the underlying decision to proscribe Palestine action was, of course, taken by Keir Starmer. It is a significant part of why he is out now.)
(edit war: "the signs are a serious criminal offence" -- this is why the Americans will be laughing at us about freedom of speech when they wake up on this forum.)
I don't see corresponding arrests being deployed against Twitter posters who were supporting the riots in Belfast, including the firebombing of immigrant homes, for example. I guess that's because they're not an organisation with a name, which is the important thing, rather than the actual violence?
> What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such
This was literally a decision Starmer personally made, to put Palestine Action on the proscribed organization list. Without that the signs would not be an offence.
How can this be squared with the decisions to not prosecute burglars, drug dealers, rapists and armed gangs, however? They are all people who commit serious criminal offences on purpose in Britain today without facing arrest.
Regardless of the rights and wrong policy wise: Starmer was not a people person. I was as big a remainer as you'd ever find, and even I have to admit Boris Johnson could work people. Starmer was so inept in his day to day handling of his fellow humans it's surreal.
My personal favourite (and not the only example, but my own final straw) was his response when a large chunk of his traditional electorate voted for a female Plumber 'who wanted to make work pay for working people' and build 'healthier communities' is worth watching as an example of how to make more people jump ship.
For better or worse I signed up for the Green Party on the spot when I read that.
He was possibly a good backroom manager and well intentioned, but for leadership... no.
>>There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
Well the bigger issue is that none of the major parties in the UK have any kind of sensible list of priorities, that they can actually whip the MPs to stick to.
Well Starmer had a massive majority and could have got whatever was needed passed to sort out public finances, but his MPs rebelled (or he chickened out).
There isn't that easy a fix. Since Brexit "cake and eat it" lies, and "fuck business" deal (both Boris quotes), business has been a bit well, fucked. Hence high debt, poor economy, seven different prime ministers as people thinking sticking a different person in no 10 will make the screwed trade deals and huge debt magically cease to be.
People forget that the government is still mostly the civil service. The thin veneer of politicians over the top doesn't change the operating constraints of the UK unless you can spend a long time on the matter and reshape things slowly. Which was what was happening until this mess.
The issue isn’t the Labour Party it’s the entire country. Brexit has been a disaster, energy costs are through the roof, housing is becoming more costly, and there’s been no real economic growth in a decade.
But no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it. They just want to grumble and say the current leader isn’t any good before moving onto the next one, rather than admitting they might need to actually accept some change in the country.
Most of the real power is in the budget, which is technically a bill, but I would 100% go for "change the voting system". Almost anything except D'Hondt is better than FPTP; for simplicity, we could just copy the Scottish Parliament's use of AMS.
I would also insert a trapdoor that future changes to the voting system would require the approval of >50% of eligible voters, including non-voters. Yes, I know Parliament cannot bind its successors and all that, but at least I can make it look bad to change it again.
Does this solve any of the immediate problems? No. Does it solve the dysfunctionality since 2008? I think so, especially given that polling these days looks like five parties getting 20% of the vote each. Labour themselves came to power on 38% of the vote.
Lots of the problems in the UK stem from a lack of strategic vision. More coalitions, infighting, compromises, etc aren't going to drive serious change home. Don't really care if it's Labour or Tory, tbh, just want national politics focus on bigger picture stuff and bulldoze through regs if it's a matter of strategic investment.
What would be nice for voting reform, is to add regional elections across the nation (replacing the old European ones). This would be a great layer of government to vote in coalitions, who deal with 'softer day to day areas of government' (care, benefits, roads, etc). Would be a great incubator for national talent, too. We should be able to see how future PMs deal with a region before trusting them with national affairs.
The grand coalition governments of the EU are not in any way better. They just result in bickering and gridlock because parties that hate each other get stuck in the same room.
This is your pet issue, completely based on the grass looking greener on the other side.
The gridlock is real whether it happens inside or outside the party. This is partly why we're here in the first place! Starmer is out because he couldn't do coalition management inside the Labour party.
Starmer being an ideologue is a pretty funny take. I think most people would say he failed because he's a technocrat with no descernible principles or ideas.
Diversity over everything. Does not care about anything else. He is not a technocrat, to be a technocrat he would need to have evidence based policy, which he clearly did not. He is a pure, single minded, ideologue. Every event, every opportunity was just a conduit to express his single mindless slogan of diversity being our strength.
This is a weird take, because Starmer hasn't had a particularly pro-diversity agenda. His government has been harsh on immigration ("island of strangers", large drop in net migration) and has been quite happy to do nothing in the face of a court ruling making it essentially impermissible for trans people to use public toilets.
Rejoin the EU, single market, customs union, drop sterling and take the Euro. This would almost certainly start a civil war in the UK (I am not being dramatic) but its what is needed.
EEA like Norway would be both a significant improvement, and does not require Euro. I do think we have to get to the point where we can say that actually Schengen was good and we should have been part of it before we get economically overtaken by Poland.
There shouldn't be any temporary pain from bringing energy costs down or letting the economy grow (on a per-capita basis I suppose, politicians do tend to try and cheat with migration). It would be good for everyone, or at worst neutral with wildly rare exceptions who are worse off. Which does make it a bit of a mystery why the UK and a number of other Western polities put up such a determined struggle against the two.
People are desperate for change! It's just that due to a misinformation fuelled online (and traditional media!) environment, nobody can agree what that is.
Disagree. Every one of the issues you mentioned is a direct result of labour/tory uniparty ideology. Netzero, endless migrants, insane taxation and so on.
I'm opposed too but there's little recognizance of the poor position the UK is in. Under the current decline of Britain's economic foundations, having enough diesel and gas to keep the lights on and the lorries running depends on imports from the US, which could well be banned overnight if the president - any president - feels they need to crack the whip.
Opposing the Oval Office means shortages in the supermarkets, gas power stations turning off and a bond crash that makes the DWP lack the liquidity to service all of the monthly state pension payments, besides a great many other problems.
Locking up placard-wavers is stupid, but so is intentionally waving a placard with the name of a proscribed group, when just about any other message supporting the cause would be fine.
If you do a million pounds in criminal damage and attack a police officer with a sledgehammer, you can't just write it off as 'direct action', you deserve a tough jail sentence whatever the cause.
If the government is legitimately evil for proscribing a group they should be able to deal with their constituents calling them out for it. Materially hindering a genocide is by all currently accepted human standards a good thing.
They did that on purpose, though: Palestine Action has been banned on the basis of being a "terror organisation", this means that supporting them is a criminal offence. Knowing that, they purposedly propested by holding signs saying that they supported Palestine Action... and therefore they were arrested as expected (and really the police has no choice in such cases not to undermine the rule of law).
Note what the Court of Appeal said when ruling that the ban on terror grounds was legal:
[It was] "a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism. It is not - as claimed - a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes, operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation which operates with secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy property and cause injury. " [1]
The suffragettes committed dozens of assaults and arsons and at least one deployment of an IED, which suggests bad faith in the interest of political orthodoxy by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr.
Funny u/JumpCrisscross who was asking for sources has now deleted the post with the question.
> Since July last year, police have arrested at least 2,787 people across the UK for holding signs displaying statements such as “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries.
> "The law does not have an age limit", the head of the Metropolitan Police said after an 83-year-old retired priest was arrested for supporting a banned protest group.
And in the same above article there's an explanation about why this "violent terrorist group" has been banned:
> The move to ban the organisation was announced after two Voyager aircraft were sprayed with red paint at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 20 June. It caused about £7m of damage, police said.
I agree with you generally but the RAF are part of the state and not meaningfully "capital". If you attack the military then yes obviously you are going to get the book thrown at you. That does _not_ justify going after the people with signs.
"Corner, a former student at the University of Oxford, was also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm after he fractured Sgt Kate Evans' spine with a sledgehammer in the raid."
But again, let's be clear: that justifies the conviction of the person with the hammer. Not the people with signs.
Ugh, thank you - I was not aware of this. I agree with you - this should have got that person prosecuted. People with signs is perhaps a tad exaggerated.
They actually hacked holes in the things with a crowbar too. That didn't do as much damage as expected though.
And they videoed themselves doing it and published that.
And the aircraft weren't usable in the Israel-Palestine conflict but were in the Ukraine one. You have to wonder considering the Russian connections of the principal sponsor of Palestine Action: Fergie Chambers. Worth reading up on him.
Actions of a traitor or enemy saboteur. Lucky they didn't get shot.
Some of these protesters seem to think they're invincible these days because they support a popular cause (Palestine or climate, usually). They need to get a grip on what reasonable 'direct action' is. Obstructive protests are generally OK, Destructive protests aren't.
Ah yes the lovely protesters who spat on me, called me a baby killer and pretended they were going to punch me when I got stuck in the middle of them and said "I don't have time for this - I need to get to my mother" while I was trying to get to my dying mother in hospital and walked right into them leaving a tube station.
Fuck 'em. Sympathy gone.
Also I vote on local policy. The Middle East is a big political distraction from what's actually going on here. 99.9% of us can do fuck all about the Middle East and I suspect 90% of the country couldn't give a flying fuck about it either. But you know the council spent time on a meeting so they have a gaza policy but can't collect the bins reliably.
Oh agreed. If anyone cares that much travel back to whichever country they support and enlist. Also renounce your British citizenship at the same time.
I practically beelined to Ukraine when the war broke out and dedicated a good 2 months to humanitarian work. I've probably achieved more independently than huge organised movements with probable nation state backing.
Huge amounts of funding, huge election talking points, hundreds of thousands of people, entire student bodies, propaganda networks, and what quantifiable achievements have been made? It all comes off as a preformative social occasion with 0 goals.
Have far more respect for those who put their money where their mouth is and actually joined ISIS than the professional protestor caste.
Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg:
> I thought parliamentary elections in UK worked like in most of Europe: you vote for a party, not a candidate.
They are. It's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. Nobody votes directly for who will become PM, who is ultimately selected by the monarch as the person who can best command a majority of the House of Commons – normally the leader of the biggest party, of course, but not necessarily. Perpetuating this view is frustrating because it's not what the system is designed for, and I feel a common misconception among voters that they are "electing the PM".
With the increasing breaking of two-party politics, it would not surprise me if we see this precedent of the monarch choosing a PM who can command a majority tested in close outcomes in future GEs where no party gains an overall majority. I'll be particularly interested to see how the press describes such an outcome, if it occurs, especially if the result is that the party with the most votes doesn't go on to join such a coalition.
Nevertheless, it frustrates me when these changes are described as "undemocratic", as that's a common talking point perpetuated by a poor understanding of the constitutional basis of UK elections. If there is a desire that the PM should be directly elected, that would mean a substantial rewiring of the UK constitution more broadly.
a common talking point perpetuated by a poor understanding of the constitutional basis of UK elections
Please don't presume.
I'm fully aware of the parliamentary vs presidential basis of our government, but it's naive to think the leader of the party isn't a significant factor in whether a party gets elected - that's the whole basis of the current situation!
People voted for a combination of Kier Starmer, Labour, and their local constituency MP - and to get rid of the Tories.
That landslide election result is now being subverted by internal Labour panic, mainstream media stirring up stories and the egos of his competitors (on top of course of any Labour and Starmer failings).
The idea that people voted strictly along paper theoretical purist party lines is for the birds.
Agree with your first sentence but he is described as being on the very left wing of the party and, if he becomes PM, it will be with the support of the left wing, not the blairites.
> he is described as being on the very left wing of the party
By whom, and why are they worth taking seriously? Some politicians these days say all kinds of deranged nonsense about their opponents, and very often paint them as "far left" regardless of actual position. It's not worth taking at face value if it comes from there.
His 2010 leadership bid was very much on the left and now he is clearly pitching on the left, too. It may not be the furthest left but it is very left nonetheless and John McDonnell's support is not random. ot sure what's controversial or "deranged nonsense" there, strange...
Obviously we shall see what he actually does if he becomes PM.
Hopefully the successor will clean the mess still left realted to the Pakistani rape gangs and police collusion.
The entire UK society seem to have been trying to ignore the issue rather than solve the root of it (which is not necessarily immigration itself but political correctness)
>It paves the way for Britain's seventh leader in 10 years
How come the revolving door? I'd like to taste a bit of that here in the US, but isn't such frequency societally destabilizing? I am not up on UK election process (I assume elections happened), forgive my ignorance.
Starmer was the UK version of Joe Biden. He was the right guy to get Labor back on track and sort out the financial disaster left by the Tories. But he couldn't build a convincing vision of the future.
But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't possibly decide the future of the country.
But perhaps the idea is to trigger a re-election because a "continue as usual" will be fatal for Labour and the country.
Yeah, it seems like much has already been discussed and agreed upon in the backstage. Burnham comes in, Streeting gives a go, and there is a smooth transition.
I could imagine that they simply didn't want to have weeks or months of limbo while the world situation is as unstable as it is. Labour very much campaigned on "being different than Tories". And you could argue that a lengthy contest is counter productive. Especially if it turns into a media circus that only binds attention and resources, giving Farage room to attack.
> Here's a look at his 'Manchesterism' vision and economic model for Britain, which he describes as "business-friendly socialism"
I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction.
> He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies.
Ok, also seems reasonable.
> Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway).
> Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months.
Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.
Just one more minister, I promise you, just one more and all politics will resolve. Come on, just one more and it will fix everything. Please just one more. One more minister and we can fix the whole problem.
I'm not entirely certain of the electoral details, but the UK Labour party is neck-and-neck with the UK Conservatives for falling from being a top-2 party [0]. This type of decisive reform may be sufficient to keep them out of 3rd place, so it is worth a try. The voters could take to it.
Might as well just hand Farage the next general election at this rate. The last decade has been personality cult after personality cult. We had the start of stability and have thrown chaos in again. Just what the opposition want.
And who are the idiots, the pensioners, the facebook dwelling, the Daily Mail reading knuckle draggers gonna vote?
You get Farage because people want a Farage. I mean, have you seen what happened across the pond?
The dumb people, those with endless thirst for easy solution to complex problems, are the ones deciding the fate of the country. They’re the first ones lining up at the voting booth.
Trouble is we are bouncing back and forth between centrist politicians who are great at coalition management but systematically sweep problems under the rug [1] and can't connect with people and populist politicians who connect with people but can't govern and flood the zone with bullshit or improperly formulated issues.
One alternative is that we find politicians that can connect and can govern, the other alternative is wait a few decades for the situation that the Club of Rome warned you about to unfold and count on a less complex civilization to be easier to govern.
[1] one cynical take is that it is a primary function of political systems to keep problems off the agenda because the agenda is finite.
I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.