44 Comments

No principles, full of vanity and emptiness. Stands for nothing. No friend of the real Labour movement - and was unnecessarily spiteful to Corbyn and the left. I wish I could have a Labour Party to vote for, but not under Starmer.

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I believe a leader’s popularity is linked to his or hers party policies. As yet the public do not understand what Sir K stands for? I for one, earnestly hope that labour learn from the mistakes of Neal Kinnock’s election campaign . Clear direction on policy first, popularity is a bonus.

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Vote for Starmer? Once elected, he couldn't drop his 'pledges' fast enough. No thanks

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I see no evidence of traditional Labour values from Starmer. I won’t vote for him.

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Given his undemocratic behaviour toward Labour party members, he can't be trusted not become an authoritarian leader if he becomes PM.

His management of the CPS when DPP, persecuting Assange and not prosecuting the murderers of the innocent Jean Cahrles de Menesesez (among other failures), reveal him to be the establishment's man in any position of power.

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Starmer has the same problem as Cameron, Sunak, Miliband and Truss. None of them had been an MP for more than 10 years when they became Prime Minister or leader of their party. The opposite is true in America where Trump and Biden were in their 70’s when they became President. There should be a rule about this but the modern era appears impatient about leadership and there is nothing that can be done about it. I suggest that an MP should have served at least 10 years in the Commons before they can be eligible for leadership of their party or PM, if their party is in power.

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We have so much to thank Kier Starmer, Angela Rayner and colleagues for. Labour may be in government in 2025. How has this happened? By Labour becoming a party of competence. Kier and Angela and colleagues have delivered all the New Statesman's suggestions of what Labour needs to be to win the next election. Mr Johnson's government's investments were Mr Corbyn's shadow cabinet ideas now adopted where affordable. added bonus of Ed Milliban's green policies and this week Stephen Kinnock outlining a solution to the small boats (working more with Europe). There is so much to be proud of, but its never going to be praised by the press in general. and its hard for ordinary Labour members to appreciate how socialist this is in a hostile press climate. (e.g. the wonderful the dead ringers bbc ridicule of Labour) I didn't vote for either Kier Starmer or Angela Rayner in 2019, I only expected Labour to be in government in 2030 - that says how much Kier and Angela have achieved. Thank you both and colleagues all very much. best wishes david

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Starmer and the Labour Party executive are so far removed from ordinary people that if Labour manages to win the next election it will not make an iota of difference to ordinary peoples lives. Interested to see Corbyn's low popularity. That doesn't reflect the popularity he had first time round when he succeeded in massively expanding the Labour Party's membership. It merely reflects the massive stitch up done on him second time round by the Labour executive and the mainstream.

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The table shows his popularity in his first 30 polls.

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Starmer is a control freak and a timid Tory, so like New and Classic Coke, many people will continue to opt for the real thing.

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Keith Starmer appears to me to be an unprincipled opportunist.

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Starmer is increasingly depressing because of his adoption of anything that might frighten anyone, anywhere, ever. Is there anything left that he won't jettison? Once elected (assuming he is, and I don't think it is as likely as it should be given the circumstances) he will feel compelled not to do anything that will upset those very same people he has pandered to. So once again we will trudge to the polls and vote with reluctance and resignation rather than hope. Sunak has only to look 'nice' for a few months and his rightwing media will stick him back in power. If only we could have a different voting system. Is there such a thing? Oh, there is!

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True blue politician. Will say anything to get elected, but, clearly has nothing he truly believes in . Will renege on any promises he made when the tories tell him to. Uninspiring, untrustworthy and unprincipled. Unelectable.

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He is poor, nowhere like the person who I voted for, he is acting like a frightened man instead of sticking up for the policies he should believe in. He now wants to jettison ULEV, a perfectly good policy and if both him and the candidate had properly got behind this policy in the recent by election we would have won. He talks about tough decisions. This is rubbish. He takes “tough” decisions if it affects the poor like backtracking on cancelling the 2 children child benefit policy. He doesn’t look tough, in fact he looks weak what the voters think.

You cannot keep rowing back on everything in the hope of getting votes. You cannot please everyone because in doing do you will alienate your core vote. Of course, Labour should win the next election in spite of Starmer because the Tories are so bad even a lizard would look preferable. But this policy of trying to please “middle england” is farcical. You are chasing a myth. There really is no such thing. I don’t want a rerun of Blairism. This country needs radical policies to tackle global warming, and also our industrial decline, a lot of which can be blamed on Thatcherite anti union legislation. I fear this isn’t going to happen. Such a shame that Angela didn’t contest the leadership.

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I am not an enthusiast for Starmer but I think that that table is misleading. Starmer is up against Sunak not Cameron Just as Kinnock was up against Major. Without showing the respective figures for those two Tory PMs then the comparison between Kinnock and Starmer is not really meaningful.

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Lacklustre, hard to discern any coherent vision, too often looking over his shoulder

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He wants power and his programme to get it seems to be endlessly flexible. His public persona is unattractive, a humourless bureaucrat. And if how he runs Labour is anything to go by, he is a control freak, not in any way a pluralist. The omens do not look good, frankly.

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