First vaguely competent PM in a decade and the infighting is already starting. We are so fucked.
I know I'm a Starmer 8er but he made a number of failings which ended his premiership.
Firstly, he was never able to eastablish an electoral base which would support him. He spent much of his premiership chasing ring win Reform leaning votes and isolating (or outright insulting) the progressive left. The issue with this is, based on data, Reform supporters were never going to switch to him and the old Labour right policy of telling left wing voters they had no where else to do has provied void. The Greens under Polankski has grabbed that vote. This is seen is literally every election since Starmer became PM, the only exception being the Makerfield byelection because Burnham was campaigning on replacing him. The Ming vase strategy is in pieces now.
His inability to be a coherent politician, what does he stand for? Before being leader, he was supportive of Gaza, Trans Rights and taxing the super wealthy. Everything he has u-turned on.
Unavoidable errors, such as the handling of the Winter Fuel Allowence, Benefits bill and Mandelson has damaged his authority and I would argue a more political savvy person would have avoided those fuck ups which pissed off people and I would argue was not good policy. WFA, in its initial rollout affected people who were not too well off and now after the U turn is too generous in who qualifies for it. The benefits bill was just shitshow, it was very hot summer day and there were a tonne of clearly disabled people protesting against it. It was an awful look and quite frankly not something the Labour party should be doing and it the U-turn meant no money was saved. Than Mandelson. The man is a proven liability and appointing him to the ambassador post raises serious questions on his judgement.
He's an atrocious communicator. I have a level of personal symptathy for him here but sadly we now live in a world where being an effective communicator is an essential rather a desirable. Especially with how vibes based everything seems to be. The actually achievements of his government have not been communicated well to the wider public (Renters rights, workers rights, Taxing VAT on private schools, recognition of Palestine as a state).
The general chaos of his office. In his backroom, there have been multiple personnel changes and multiple rebrands. I think there's been 4 or 5 Comms directors, 4 chief of staffs and multiple changes in advisors. The common denominator in all of this him. I don't think he was ever suited to the role of PM.
To put this into context, I voted for Starmer to be Labour Leader in 2020 and have felt continually let down by him as someone who is very much on the left. I ended up resgining my Labour membership after 12 or 13 years to tput this into contect. I think he put his faith in the wrong people (i.e. the idiot known as Morgan McSweeney) and was lacked basic political nous.
sorry for any grammer issues, am writing this in my lunch break!
