Starmer - idiot or just thick?

1966_and_all_that said:
Absolutely not. And you are right to say so. But, the country has to be set on a better course. It may well take two, three Governments and that could take 15 years. But look at what we've had. 13 years, 5 Prime Ministers in 4 elections and- as you say - a Horlicks of a situation. Give Labour an opportunity. I do it because I'm philosophically wedded to the Labour Party. You don't need to be. Just make it a common sense choice.
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I will make my voting decision, as I always do, after reading, digesting and giving careful consideration to the major parties manifestos. Then and only then will I vote for whichever party appears to be the one with serious ideas for the future of the country and the people. Until such time I am not politically inclined one way or the other.
 
foggy said:
The current polling average is Lab 44%/Cons 26%. Using the website Electoral Calculus to convert this into estimated seats using their models this translates to a 214 seat majority. Now polls have a margin of error and on average you can expect them to be a few points out. So maybe the Tories are lucky and that 18 point lead actually is a 14 point lead. Of course since there is no pattern to which way the average error goes, it is also possible that instead of tighten the lead it actually widens. A poll today from YouGov has the Tories at 24% which produces a 300 seat majority. FPTP produces some very odd results once a main party gets into the mid to low 20s and if you think a 200 seat majority is the stuff of dreams I would recommend familiarising yourself with the polls and Sunak's approval rating. The model doesn't even take into account tactical voting which we know voters are doing more and more of to vote against the Tories.
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I have lived long enough and been through very many elections. If I have learned anything during that time it’s that the only poll that matters is the one on election day. There have been some surprises along the way but not many total shocks. A 200+ majority would be a total shock.
 
Chunkylad said:
Albert. Please tell me then what Rishi will do better now than Labour and again after the election.

I’m genuinely interested and you’ll see from my last postings that I’m not a great fan of either party.
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I think you will see from my posts, neither am I. Sunak to me is a Mr. Micawber thinking something will turn up, I also think at the moment changing Government would be like changing deck chairs on the Titanic.
 
Albert Ross said:
In Corbyn’s draft manifesto, which Starmer supported, he pledged to finish HS2 from London to Manchester and Leeds then continue it into Scotland. So not just the Tories.
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Which would have been better than billions spent on the half arsed bodge job we're getting.
 
Albert Ross said:
In Corbyn’s draft manifesto, which Starmer supported, he pledged to finish HS2 from London to Manchester and Leeds then continue it into Scotland. So not just the Tories.
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Which would have been better than billions spent on the half arsed bodge job
 
foggy said:
He's a fundamentally pretty normal and a bit boring man who is playing a very conservative game of not making any major slipups. The Tories have been hoping he does for two years now and he's barely given them a hint this will happen. You seem to think he is some Boris type who is prone to making a calamity at any moment which is the exact opposite of how he is going about his business. Trust me as someone who wants him to be more bold he isn't going to give you an inch. He will continue to be uninspiring and maybe that puts a roof on his support but it will still lead to a +10 percentage point victory. The Tories are falling as low in the polls as they were when Truss left.
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Labour had a similar poll lead in the 1990 election. Election day was bright and sunny, Kinnock said on camera on election morning “ the sun is out and so are the Tories” Labour lost, over confidence can be an enemy.
 
Albert Ross said:
I think you will see from my posts, neither am I. Sunak to me is a Mr. Micawber thinking something will turn up, I also think at the moment changing Government would be like changing deck chairs on the Titanic.
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So you cannot see anything that the current government will do then better than Labour between now and the election nor afterwards?
 
Albert Ross said:
Labour had a similar poll lead in the 1990 election. Election day was bright and sunny, Kinnock said on camera on election morning “ the sun is out and so are the Tories” Labour lost, over confidence can be an enemy.
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I am going to presume you mean the 1992 election. The polls in the week before the election were averaging about +3 for Labour. Labour are currently +18, and potentially trending even higher. If you were certain of a Labour win in 1992 you were being silly. +3 is close. +18 is not. Pollsters also learnt from sampling mistakes in 1992 which were heavily analysed and adapted going forward.
 
Albert Ross said:
I have lived long enough and been through very many elections. If I have learned anything during that time it’s that the only poll that matters is the one on election day. There have been some surprises along the way but not many total shocks. A 200+ majority would be a total shock.
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Since polls are published publically we can actually look at their history, every single one, and gauge how accurate they were. This means we can figure out the average margin of error. Labour's lead is well outside that margin of error and has been for a long time. If there was en election tomorrow they would romp to victory. You will not find an election where the polls were wrong about an 18 point lead. In your long life you have never lived through one. Now, we know the election isn't tomorrow and the Tories can tighten that lead, and if that lead becomes +5/6 now we have a real election on our hands, rather than a coronation. However there has been no sign of that whatsoever, they are remarkably stable, and they are just as likely to widen and Labour's lead grow even bigger than they are to tighten.
 
foggy said:
I am going to presume you mean the 1992 election. The polls in the week before the election were averaging about +3 for Labour. Labour are currently +18, and potentially trending even higher. If you were certain of a Labour win in 1992 you were being silly. +3 is close. +18 is not. Pollsters also learnt from sampling mistakes in 1992 which were heavily analysed and adapted going forward.
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My fat fingers at fault 😁 My point is pollsters very rarely get it right. As I said the only one that matters is the one on the day. Labour almost certainly will win, my doubts are with the size of the majority. I personally think it will be much narrower, but time will tell.
 
Albert Ross said:
My fat fingers at fault 😁 My point is pollsters very rarely get it right. As I said the only one that matters is the one on the day. Labour almost certainly will win, my doubts are with the size of the majority. I personally think it will be much narrower, but time will tell.
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I didn't say pollsters get it exactly right, however there is a range of which we have a 95% confidence interval and that range is a handful of percentage points. If Labour had a +3 lead I would agree that does not mean much. No poll ever has even been wrong about an +18 point lead. But again, that's if the elevation was held tomorrow. And the size of Labours lead is just as likely to grow as it is to tighten. People have had a good look at Sunak now and they don't like what they see.
 
foggy said:
I didn't say pollsters get it exactly right, however there is a range of which we have a 95% confidence interval and that range is a handful of percentage points. If Labour had a +3 lead I would agree that does not mean much. No poll ever has even been wrong about an +18 point lead. But again, that's if the elevation was held tomorrow. And the size of Labours lead is just as likely to grow as it is to tighten. People have had a good look at Sunak now and they don't like what they see.
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I see you have fat fingers too. People have a nasty habit of 1. Not telling the truth in polls and 2. Of being determined to do something, then wobbling when it comes to decision time. However as I said, we will see.
 
foggy said:
I am going to presume you mean the 1992 election. The polls in the week before the election were averaging about +3 for Labour. Labour are currently +18, and potentially trending even higher. If you were certain of a Labour win in 1992 you were being silly. +3 is close. +18 is not. Pollsters also learnt from sampling mistakes in 1992 which were heavily analysed and adapted going forward.
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Latest Yougov poll gives Labour 22per cent lead.
 
Albert Ross said:
I see you have fat fingers too. People have a nasty habit of 1. Not telling the truth in polls and 2. Of being determined to do something, then wobbling when it comes to decision time. However as I said, we will see.
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Again, we can measure that can't we. If the polls consistently said that Labour will win by 5 and the Tories always win by 2 we know polls consistently overestimate Labour by 7 and can factor that in. This is what people do. They look at historical data and have figured out historical average margin of error, it doesn't matter what reason they were out. Whether it was because people were lying, or because they oversampled older people rather than younger people. The data tells us the margin of error. It's about +/-3 for each main party, meaning we can say with a 95% confidence interval that if Labour were on 35 and Tories were on 35 and an election were tomorrow both parties would land somewhere between 32 and 38. You cannot name a single poll that said a party would win by +18 and then they lost. You are welcome to look. They are all publicly available.
 
Albert Ross said:
I will make my voting decision, as I always do, after reading, digesting and giving careful consideration to the major parties manifestos. Then and only then will I vote for whichever party appears to be the one with serious ideas for the future of the country and the people. Until such time I am not politically inclined one way or the other.
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So you'd give this lot another go?

13 years of disaster and you'll go again?

There's no response to that level of out and out stupidity. That's what it is.
 
Albert Ross said:
I will make my voting decision, as I always do, after reading, digesting and giving careful consideration to the major parties manifestos. Then and only then will I vote for whichever party appears to be the one with serious ideas for the future of the country and the people. Until such time I am not politically inclined one way or the other.
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Is that what you did in 2019? How did it work out?
 
Sven said:
Especially if you're from Blackpool or any other deprived northern town.
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Absolute bollocks Blackpool was at it's worse under a Labour government and has had a Lab run council for years, only recently improvements have be made.

They're both as bad as each other anyone who thinks otherwise is a thick as pig shit.
 
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poolseasider said:
Absolute bollocks Blackpool was it worse under a Labour government and has had a Lab run council for years, only recently improvements have be made.

There both as bad as each other anyone who thinks otherwise is a thick as pig shit.
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I don't think I'm as thick as pig shit thank you. What I would say is that voting for a local Council and voting for a National Government are massively different.
 
poolseasider said:
Absolute bollocks Blackpool was it worse under a Labour government and has had a Lab run council for years, only recently improvements have be made.

There both as bad as each other anyone who thinks otherwise is a thick as pig shit.
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Nothing to do with central Government slashing funding to councils then?
 
poolseasider said:
Absolute bollocks Blackpool was it worse under a Labour government and has had a Lab run council for years, only recently improvements have be made.

There both as bad as each other anyone who thinks otherwise is a thick as pig shit.
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* They are or they’re.
 
1966_and_all_that said:
Why are you so determined to be anti-Starmer? What is the sense in it?
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Sorry 1966, but I just don't like him. I don't think he's a good politician, I don't like his politics (bearing in mind he was drooling over Corbyn's previously), he was fast tracked by Labour from civvy street and it shows. He is one of the most boring, lacklustre politicians ever to grace Parliament, and there are/were far better candidates than him.
 
Wizaard said:
Manifesto promises from 2019 around the environment all junked today. Can't trust the cheating lying spivs.
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The last pathetic act of a government that knows it is marching to its obliteration. Jeopardising the long term security of the country in a desperate attempt at finding a wedge issue that may finally divide the country. I've read 5 or 6 times how Sunak is going to launch a 'war on woke' and none of them have worked. It turns out people don't really care about trans issues when they can't afford their mortgages. Now they have turned to net zero as their latest attempt at starting a culture war. I have to admit, I never thought they would attempt it, considering these are their own policies they introduced. But I guess they are that out of ideas. It's remarkable, their majority in Uxbridge and Ruislip declined by 13.4 percentage points despite the very local ULEZ issue and now they've convinced themselves that this was a 'win' that they can now replicate every where in the country. A 13.4% decline everywhere would deliver a Blair-esque Labour lead. Although I guess just hitting triple figures in terms of seats might be the best the Tories can realistically hope for now
 
Wizaard said:
So Sunak can drop umpteen bollocks and that's OK then
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Read the context of my post Wiz before posting unsubstantiated drivel which I didn't mention.

I appreciate you are a staunch Labour supporter, and hate the Tories with a passion, but don't be so agenda driven that you don't seem to ever see Starmer's failings, of which like Sunk he has plenty.
 
Bend it like Suddick said:
Read the context of my post Wiz before posting unsubstantiated drivel which I didn't mention.

I appreciate you are a staunch Labour supporter, and hate the Tories with a passion, but don't be so agenda driven that you don't seem to ever see Starmer's failings, of which like Sunk he has plenty.
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Go on then. What are all these faults?

Rishi drops a bollock practically every day, whether it's 'inadvertently' forgetting to mention his wife being a preferred supplier for the childcare scheme, his family benefiting by billions through the granting of oil and gas licences, or the scrapping of environmental manifesto promises, while deflecting about small boats. What about Michelle Mone's small boat? She's cost us far more than migrants.

All massively damaging to this country.

Compare and contrast with Starmer. Don't get your point.
 
Wizaard said:
Don't get your point
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You won't do because you have a natural bias.

At this moment in time, Starmer cannot properly be compared to Sunak as he is only a Shadow leader with no governing power.

When/If he attains his goal, I will only be too pleased to assess his competence and make comparisons. Can't wait.

I on the other hand can see Sunaks deficiencies of which he has several, most of which you have highlighted.
 
FWIW I spent about 3 hours with Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper when they came to Hartlepool.

I had about 30 minutes with him and 45 minutes with her just us.

Keir is far, far less stilted in person away from all the Hullabaloo of the media etc and Yvette was on good form too.

He didn't come across as thick nor an idiot.

He's just doing what every political would do and not stop the opposition from shooting themselves in the foot.

The time is coming for them to start laying out what they would do if they were in power - we know what the Tories are doing, do at least we can make a comparison.

I met Angela Rayner a couple of weeks ago and was chatting about the "Take Back Control Bill" which IF done properly is a great idea.

All that said, I wouldn't put it past Labour to do something stupid like not defining a woman as an adult human female for fear of upsetting a fringe minority.
 
poolseasider said:
Absolute bollocks Blackpool was it worse under a Labour government and has had a Lab run council for years, only recently improvements have be made.

There both as bad as each other anyone who thinks otherwise is a thick as pig shit.
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They're.

I only mentioned this as it seemed in context when discussing people who are thick as pig shit 👍
 
TSSeasider said:
FWIW I spent about 3 hours with Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper when they came to Hartlepool.

I had about 30 minutes with him and 45 minutes with her just us.

Keir is far, far less stilted in person away from all the Hullabaloo of the media etc and Yvette was on good form too.

He didn't come across as thick nor an idiot.

He's just doing what every political would do and not stop the opposition from shooting themselves in the foot.

The time is coming for them to start laying out what they would do if they were in power - we know what the Tories are doing, do at least we can make a comparison.

I met Angela Rayner a couple of weeks ago and was chatting about the "Take Back Control Bill" which IF done properly is a great idea.

All that said, I wouldn't put it past Labour to do something stupid like not defining a woman as an adult human female for fear of upsetting a fringe minority.
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Interesting insight. I have heard similar from people who have played football with/against him. The football thing is actually a great example. He genuinely loves it and plays it weekly, and he always has a few pints after a game. He's not putting it on, like Cameron getting mixed up whether he supported Aston Villa or West Ham. However whenever they release a picture of him celebrating England winning it looks like he is a robot. It looks totally fake. I think that's just what politics does to a lot of folk.
 
Wizaard said:
Except that the debt is now at least 10 times worse under this shower of shite with nothing to show for it.
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It’s actually just over twice as much. Obviously maths isn’t your strong point, just hurling insults at people you don’t know and opinions you don’t like.
 
Bend it like Suddick said:
Shame that it's the usual suspects then. I have massive doubts about a Starmer led Government (which initially has to be better than the Tories), and the LibDems are a non-entity and utterly clueless.

If I had a preference Id like to give Richard Tice and his Reform Party a go, just to see if they could do any worse, but possibly better.
If you listen to Tice he actually talks a lot of sense.
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What are the Reform Party policies that you support? And what does Richard Tice say that you think makes sense?
 
Bend it like Suddick said:
Sorry 1966, but I just don't like him. I don't think he's a good politician, I don't like his politics (bearing in mind he was drooling over Corbyn's previously), he was fast tracked by Labour from civvy street and it shows. He is one of the most boring, lacklustre politicians ever to grace Parliament, and there are/were far better candidates than him.
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And Sunak wasn't fast tracked by the Tories?
 
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