Starmer's vision quest

[BoldonLad]

This may blow your mind, but the likes of the Sun, Times, Mail etc are not reporting on what's going well.
The area where Starmer isn't helping himself is the knee jerk responses. Digital ID was in the manifesto. Instead of saying "well this is what you voted for", he collapsed and did a u-turn.

All of the "fails" are due to showing weakness or failing to justify why they are failures. That's the major Starmer problem.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but, I dont read any of those comics

 

[BoldonLad]

We’ve already seen it from the previous government.

I didn't vote for them, and, I agree, it was grim 😊

 

[Psamathe]

This is an extremely good piece by Lewis Goodall on Starmer/Mandelson, with a hefty mea culpa. It's worth reading the whole thing, but the quote below is at the heart of it.

https://goodallandgoodluck.substack...&shareImageVariant=overlay&triedRedirect=true

"I recount this not because the decision was especially important, but because it reveals something I cannot ignore but which many are: how distant the Epstein story felt then. That makes it harder for me to judge Starmer — unless he knew something I did not. Like me, he made the wrong judgment in light of what we now know. But I also know this: if those now shouting loudest had been shouting then, the question would have been harder to avoid — and the appointment less likely to be made. Because of this episode reveals anything it is the power of the old media to dictate the terms.

None of this is intended to excuse Starmer. Labour MPs were right about one thing: he was visibly strangulated at the dispatch box. His hand trembled. He seemed to shrink as the minutes passed. Perhaps it will yet emerge that he was hiding something — something he knows, deep in his lawyer’s bones, will destroy him. A Prime Minister of probity ejected from Downing Street in the worst ethics scandal since the last one.

But perhaps it was something else. Deep down, in those same lawyer’s bones, he knows and we know, the real reason he appointed Mandelson, another truth from which we still look away: he appointed him not in spite of his relationship with Epstein, but because of his relationship with Epstein.

That does not mean Starmer regarded it as an asset. But it did signify something: Mandelson’s ease in the world of the wealthy and the lawless, the lurid and the powerful, the beautiful and the damned. He was at home among global elites for whom scandal is survivable. In other words, he would be entirely at home in the court of Trump. Many of the same columnists now condemning Starmer praised him at the time for appointing a “master of the dark arts”, for taking a gamble. Starmer was no natural admirer of Mandelson, but came to believe that the jeopardy of the US-UK relationship under Trump justified the risk."

It's not the job of the Press to approve questionable appointments. It is the job of the person making the appointment.

The Press don't have the resources, don't have the records, don't have access to additional records, etc. whereas the Prime Minister does.

 

[briantrumpet]

I didn't vote for them, and, I agree, it was grim 😊

The disappointment after the trauma of Johnson and Truss was the complete lack of attempt by the not-insane Sunak to do anything useful. I think by the the time he become PM he knew the ship was sinking, so all they did was to try to troll Labour, which only made the trouncing more inevitable and worse.

 

[briantrumpet]

It's not the job of the Press to approve questionable appointments. It is the job of the person making the appointment.

The Press don't have the resources, don't have the records, don't have access to additional records, etc. whereas the Prime Minister does.

Maybe you've missed the bit about the press being essential to holding the executive to account, but it's fairly obvious now that you are not going to accept any of the logic or reasoning for the initial appointment, or the apologies for having got it wrong (see the Goodall piece if you don't want to take my POV), and you want Starmer to go. Fair enough, but I think that your reaction to all politics is therefore going to be one of permanent disappointment, if you can't see that the whole thing is murky pool full of piranhas and sharks, and navigating that pool is not going to be like swimming with dolphins.

 

[Psamathe]

Maybe you've missed the bit about the press being essential to holding the executive to account

Holding the executive to account is not the same as background checking and approving appointments.

but it's fairly obvious now that you are not going to accept any of the logic or reasoning for the initial appointment, or the apologies for having got it wrong (see the Goodall piece if you don't want to take my POV), and you want Starmer to go. Fair enough, but I think that your reaction to all politics is therefore going to be one of permanent disappointment, if you can't see that the whole thing is murky pool full of piranhas and sharks, and navigating that pool is not going to be like swimming with dolphins.

I can accept ththere was a reason for the appointment, just like there is a reason for eg spraying toxic herbicides on our agricultural fields. There being a reason does not make it right.

Maybe part of the reason it's a "murky pool full of piranhas and sharks" is because we accept that it is and just shrug our shoulders and think that because it is justifies actions that perpetuate the situation.

 

[briantrumpet]

Holding the executive to account is not the same as background checking and approving appointments.

I can accept ththere was a reason for the appointment, just like there is a reason for eg spraying toxic herbicides on our agricultural fields. There being a reason does not make it right.

Maybe part of the reason it's a "murky pool full of piranhas and sharks" is because we accept that it is and just shrug our shoulders and think that because it is justifies actions that perpetuate the situation.

Maybe it might shift your perspective just a little if you consider what subterfuge and dodgy characters spying involves... I'd suggest that that world is not entirely separate from the work of a diplomat in a 'problematic' country, and that that was the basis of the appointment, which, if you've not noticed, Starmer now regrets and admits was wrong. *If* he's telling the truth about not knowing the directly treasonous traits of Mandelson (and even I would be surprised if Starmer appointed him knowing that), then Mandelson, as the press also thought, could have been a sensible appointment, albeit risky.

 

[Pblakeney]

Maybe it might shift your perspective just a little if you consider what subterfuge and dodgy characters spying involves... I'd suggest that that world is not entirely separate from the work of a diplomat in a 'problematic' country, and that that was the basis of the appointment, which, if you've not noticed, Starmer now regrets and admits was wrong. *If* he's telling the truth about not knowing the directly treasonous traits of Mandelson (and even I would be surprised if Starmer appointed him knowing that), then Mandelson, as the press also thought, could have been a sensible appointment, albeit risky.

James Bond, good. SMERSH, bad.
Fictional but the analogy works. James Bond is a very problematic individual but we don't care.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Of course it was a bad lack of judgement by Starmer but can anyone name a PM in this century, or earlier, who has never demonstrated bad judgement at times?

In this case it was a big mistake but, concentrating on facts, what practical or physical harm, other than reputational, has Mandelson's short time as US Ambassador before Starmer sacked him caused?

It's not as if the PM has gone to war in the Middle East killing huge numbers of people in those countries, not including hundreds of our soldiers, or set up an unnecessary referendum to cause us huge economic and trading costs, or sold our gold reserves, or spooked the markets in 49 days, or prorogued parliament to prevent scrutiny of Brexit plans. Now those were examples of a lack of judgement that deserved a PM standing down.

 

[secretsqirrel]

This may blow your mind, but the likes of the Sun, Times, Mail etc are not reporting on what's going well.
The area where Starmer isn't helping himself is the knee jerk responses. Digital ID was in the manifesto. Instead of saying "well this is what you voted for", he collapsed and did a u-turn.

All of the "fails" are due to showing weakness or failing to justify why they are failures. That's the major Starmer problem.

The other Starmer problem is that he is disconnected with his own backbenches and is not leading them. They are his only effective opposition where they should be his source of strength.

 

[briantrumpet]

The area where Starmer isn't helping himself is the knee jerk responses. Digital ID was in the manifesto. Instead of saying "well this is what you voted for", he collapsed and did a u-turn.

That is an example of a self-inflicted failure: it wasn't properly worked out as a policy, they didn't prepare the political ground well, then sold it on the negative 'punishment' angle of preventing illegal immigrants getting work (as well as saying it would be compulsory). I suspect McSweeney's heavy hand on that.

Had they prepared the ground better, then focused on the ways it would help the vast majority of people in various ways, and made it (at least initially) voluntary, it wouldn't have got half the pushback it did.

It was just really bad politics, and gave the naysayers several unmissable targets. He could have delivered that manifesto item had he done it sensibly.

 

[Dorset Boy]

That is an example of a self-inflicted failure: it wasn't properly worked out as a policy, they didn't prepare the political ground well, then sold it on the negative 'punishment' angle of preventing illegal immigrants getting work (as well as saying it would be compulsory). I suspect McSweeney's heavy hand on that.

Had they prepared the ground better, then focused on the ways it would help the vast majority of people in various ways, and made it (at least initially) voluntary, it wouldn't have got half the pushback it did.

It was just really bad politics, and gave the naysayers several unmissable targets. He could have delivered that manifesto item had he done it sensibly.

Like many of Starmer's U-turns, the orginal policy has not been thought through properly.