Sadly the case. You've also got the other extreme though, where people will believe anything that criticises the government, even when it's clearly not true. As we saw yesterday...
I see Lady Nugee has committed a spectacular self-own. It's not funny that you shadowed Johnson and Truss and they ended up as PM, dear, it demonstrates how poor you were in opposing them.
Starmer appears to be trying to reposition Labour in the centre ground, which is good. What this country needs. Got to stop watching this speech though as I find the rhetoric nauseating.
I'm not a Starmer fan by any means but this speech is exactly what the Labour Party needs at this time. To his credit he seems to have turned the party on it's head in just two years, I must admit that I didn't think it was possible after the previous leadership....Jeremy who?
I'm interested in Party Conference Speeches as far as what they have to say about their policies and plans for the future. I can't stand all of the "we're better than them and they're so useless" stuff or, as he's just said, "you won't get that from the Tories". I realise it's a Party Conference and he's trying to rally the troops but, personally, I find it all a little bit pathetic. I like his "country first, Party second" stance mind, and I like what he's got to say about energy. And I definitely like the idea that they are taking the centre ground.
In any speech the content and delivery will never please everyone, it just has to please the majority. I cringed a couple of times at a some of the twee comments but the speech itself was very centrist and in line with my political position. It's a massive jump from getting booed and heckled at this conference just last year. The thing I dislike about Starmer is his lack of clarity on major issues, we used to call people like him Mavis, but there wasn't much sign of that today.
I thought the core message was good. It's just that tribalism (there's probably a better word for it in this context) that I don't like. The people commentating on it on BBC News seem to agree with you- he's come across as much more self-confident.
I am still not a fan of him, I just think the speech, not just the content, was exactly what the Labour Party needs at this time.
I just worry that they are suddenly taking more of a centre ground approach is that because that is what they believe in or is that what they need to do to win votes. It's a bit like under JC there was a lot of looking after the students as they were a large group, most who had never voted before added to the hardend Labour supporters who will vote Labour no matter what. Get back to looking after hard working people who are prepared to graft to put food on their families table, make sure they are paid a fair wage for what they do. Help small businesses who can't afford to pay their staff more than they are and force the ones that can to pay higher wages, these bigger companies wouldn't be making these huge profits if it wasn't for their workers. This is what the Labour Party was built on, its a working man's party, just go back to doing what it says on the tin
If the IMF are against it, that goes in the plus column. A bunch of chancers who regularly **** countries up acting like their **** doesn't stink.
I think you're right, you do have to question their motives for repositioning themselves. Which in turn makes me wonder about the people who vote Labour no matter what- do these people not begin to question what 'their' party stands for, or are they so blinkered that they don't care? If being in power is all they care about, and they'll do anything to get there, the whole system is irrevocably broken. I'm quite encouraged by Starmer's "country first, party second" soundbite though- it suggests their motives are honourable- but that's all it is at this stage; a soundbite. I have to say a centrist Labour under Starmer sounds like it's more a party for the average person than Corbyn's Labour which was a party for the metropolitan elite social justice warriors, who get their hummus made by the artisan organic chickpea grinder and spend a proportion of their trust funds on donations to Nicaraguan (which they pronounce Nicker-aah-waah) collective ethical coffee plantations, or for those who spend their weekends involved in protests movements and refuse to own a pair of Nikes.
All UK elections with the exception of the Brexit election are fought on the centre ground. Manifestos are deliberately produced to attract moderate voters, no party will include policies which would lose votes. An opposition party trying to occupy centre ground early in the campaign isn't anything new because the governing party has the advantage of give away budgets leading up to an election
True, but it all seems very different to Uncle Jez's Socialist Utopia which, even though they included some quite attractive policies, a large number of people saw through.
That's because it is different. Hopefully the PLP realise that policies akin to Blair's New Labour stand more of a chance of winning votes than those of the loony left and they support Starmers realignment of the party.
