paulry

jimenato

Good stuff - Keir grows on me every day.

Looks like many agree with me too.

Scamp

Interestingly, those statistics say to me that Boris divides opinion and Starmer doesn't generate much opinion (yet).

BritInParis

This seems likely given that the last YouGov poll still put the Tories ten points ahead of Labour for voting intention despite the recent Cummings fiasco.

He’s made a good start but there’s still an awful amount to do.

jimenato

I think that's fair comment.

paulry

I'm sure he does but there's only one poll that matters and we have 3 and a half years to go until that. Also, the lay of the land will be much different by the time that comes around so don't get your hopes up.

paulry

It's not a million miles different to what is happening across the pond.

Scamp

Yes. I saw a collation of polls the other day as well, the Tory advantage is disappearing into a really close count.

I rewrote it several times to try and make it sound like I was being objective rather than argumentative so I'm glad you read it that way

Lion in Winter

So many polls. That one was at the beginning of May though. Starmer had only had one PMQs with Johnson. Much water under the bridge since then, much of it virus-infected. This poll from the end of June shows a bit of a different story.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...prime-minister

At the moment though Starmer's strategy seems to be to show up government and Johnson's incompetence, and do some much-needed groundwork in the constituencies.

macliam

I'd agree that Johnson is clearly more divisive, but he still appears to have much personal support (for litle apparent reason IMO) and people prepared to let him off any failings. Starmer obviously has a large percentage of people sitting on their hands.....with some supportive and some dismisive of his position. This could be because he's "new", it could be because there has been little opportunity to display his toolset during the crisis and it could be due to a perceived lack of charisma (though we've clearly seen that charisma can be a poor indicator of ability). There's a long time to go....

Red Eric

That's 1 year less than I was expecting.

Still seems a bloody long way away though.

Scamp

Good point actually. We often copy those ****wits don't we.

It's a smart strategy. Why try and hurt someone when they're so good at punching themselves?
I've learned at work that sometimes staying quiet and letting someone else talk themselves into a position is the best way forward.

Yeah. Can't comment really. I'm getting snippets only at the moment. I hope Starmer's ducks are in a row in the shadow cabinet, that's a really important piece and getting that right gives him the platform to trust those around him and press on. If he's going to push a sustained challenge he needs a really strong, united Labour party behind him. He's certainly on the surface got the credentials to lead and seems a decent bloke all round so I don't expect too many issues there.

Lion in Winter

Starmer doesn't have Parliamentary power because of the Cons' huge advantage in seats. So he can't win or defeat any legislation barring a Tory rebellion of giant proportions. So he's undermining the government's credibility by showing them up, clever QC that he is. He got Johnson to admit in Parliament that he hadn't even read the latest Covid report last week. I just hope the electorate is noticing.

Red Eric

Personalities are one thing, policy another.

One thing's for sure - he won't be facing the same opposition his predecessor did, no matter what he does in terms of exerting control. It's natural that a leader chooses some supportive figures to work with, but that was always painted in very hostile terms when it came to Mr Corbyn, who actually didn't do anywhere near as much as he was accused of in the matter of running a tightly controlled regime. He never tried to oust the opposing voices from their senior positions, for example, or to castigate persistent offenders who damaged the party's chance of exerting influence on Brexit by consistently voting against the party line in tight votes.

But the language used in press reports about the leadership and that side of the party was consistently harsh, loaded and insinuating.

BritInParis

The Tories have been consistently 5-7 points ahead of Labour over the last two months which is pretty remarkable given everything that’s being going on. The double digit lead disappeared during the Cummings fiasco but has remained fairly constant since then.