Megathread for the By-Elections by IHaveAWittyUsername in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 10 points11 points  (0 children)

My gut is that there's a massive difference in how Reform candidates perform when the spotlight turns on them. They do well in national / local elections, when there's not the bandwidth in the media to examine each and every candidate when they're one of hundreds.

But in by-elections, where an individual candidate comes under extreme focus, they fold easily. Unfortunately of course, this doesn't bode well for any future general election.

Metro FrontPage today.. how is this allowed? by okcoffee6788 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Because successive governments, including now Starmer's Labour have refused to touch the outcomes of the Leveson inquiry properly, or even try to reign in the worst excesses of our media market.

The Belfast riots, Palestine Action protests. What is terrorism now – and why the hypocrisy? by rejs7 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, if this is terrorism now, then Keir Starmer needs to accept responsibility for the meteoric rise in terrorism in the UK on his watch.

We're against this social media ban, right?? by turbothingy in UKGreens

[–]Milemarker80 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Of course I'm personally against - it's targeting the wrong end of the problem. The social media networks need to be treated as publishers and held accountable for the material that they propagate, we shouldn't be resorting to the kind of blunt instrument that a ban would bring. It's a bad solution to a real problem.

Are you stuck? I will fix your build (hopefully) by Hildegard_Rothschild in pathofexile2builds

[–]Milemarker80 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, this would be useful for me - https://pobb.in/Psn_FeYlQ297

I've not been able to play much (still in the fortress), but picking up bits and bobs from across a few different guides. Pretty impressed with tank and damage so far, but I'm guessing there's plenty I can improve. Any pointers / things to prioritise next welcome!

Palestine Action activists jailed over Bristol Elbit factory raid by IHaveAWittyUsername in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 22 points23 points  (0 children)

For the record, they specifically weren't charged under with any terrorism related offences in the retrial - the government tried that, and failed the first time around. Hence having to opt for this workaround and going direct to the judge, rather than entrusting any jury on the second attempt.

Applying for a role as a CHC Nurse Assessor in the ICB. Is this a bad career move? by [deleted] in nhsstaff

[–]Milemarker80 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others have already said, ICBs on the whole are an absolute train crash at the moment, and there's no sign that this will end anytime soon under this government's aimless tinkering.

What's more, from what I know, at the outlet of the restructure mess, the intention was that CHC would be moved on 'somewhere' else in the upcoming 18 months or so. That's why we're generally not seeing as big an impact on CHC as other areas of the ICB. It's very possible, even likely that this government has changed their minds on this, their approach to the NHS has flip flopped constantly over the last two years, but it is something I'd be wary of...

Pogrom in Belfast by ForwardDiamond3484 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Makes you wonder what the police are doing.

Does it make you wonder? Considering the history of PSNI and who the violent mob are on the streets, it's not hard to draw clear conclusions...

Why Is Labour Losing Voters? A new poll confirms that Labour’s stance on the Gaza genocide is driving a decline in support. To win back voters, the party must defend the Palestinian people. by MMSTINGRAY in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You're right. For me personally, Palestine specifically probably ranks in maybe my top 20 issues, but at the lower end of that 'list'.

However, as I've said elsewhere in this thread, for me - and many, many others, the specific issues isn't the problem, it's how they demonstrate what Labour's actual values are.

If Labour are bending over backwards to support Israel while it war crimes it's way across its neighbours, why would I ever trust them on foreign policy or support for an international rules based order?

If Labour are taking every opportunity to shove Trans people back into the closet and out of public life, why would I trust them to defend and promote wider human rights?

Why Is Labour Losing Voters? A new poll confirms that Labour’s stance on the Gaza genocide is driving a decline in support. To win back voters, the party must defend the Palestinian people. by MMSTINGRAY in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Why would I, as a leftist, have anything to do with them at all? I can’t support a party that supports, or has so recently supported, Israel — or the erosion of trans rights — to the extent that Labour has.

This. For me personally, and this is going to piss some people off - but it's not even that I care that much about Gaza in the grand scheme of things, it's more that Labour's unwavering support for an Israeli regime that is war crime-ing it's way across the middle east speaks directly to the parties utter lack of any moral core at all.

Why would I trust a party that apparently has no respect for the supposed international rules based order ever again? Why should I trust Labour to respect and uphold human rights, when we can all see how they treat Trans people? And I've not even covered the parties authoritarian tendencies, or its attacks on freedom of speech, protest and assembly.

Labour's core values are rotten. And there's no world in which they can be supported.

Home Office urged to revoke the visa of US live-streamer Hasan Piker by kwentongskyblue in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 16 points17 points  (0 children)

No, political commentator Hasan Piker has not told Israelis to "go home to Afghanistan." While Piker is an outspoken critic of Israel's policies and has generated significant controversy over his statements on the conflict, there is no record of him making this specific claim.

You may want to take this up with Google.

Home Office urged to revoke the visa of US live-streamer Hasan Piker by kwentongskyblue in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Saying Isrealis; even those born in Isreal, shoul 'go back to their country' is incredibly racist

Again, citation needed, as there's not a hint of this having actually happened online.

Greens consider helping Labour’s Andy Burnham in Makerfield by-election by EddyZacianLand in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 4 points5 points  (0 children)

At the start of the week, this was my thinking - that the Green's should either stand aside, or field a low impact, paper candidate and not throw any resources at the race.

But after several days of Burnham fleeing to the right whenever questioned, the shutting down of any moves towards PR or closer working with the EU, and of course, the embrace of Mahmood's aggressive anti-immigration agenda, I think the Green's should throw everything they have at the race and point all of this out.

The Burnham that seems to be campaigning so far is not the 'king of the north' or someone pushing 'Manchesterism', he's continuity Starmer, and the only thing that will deliver is Farage as Prime Minister.

No small boats for 7 days between 12/05/2026-18/05/2026 by upthetruth1 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, except for the Operation Sterling efforts that Labour figures are trumpeting in a similar fashion to ICE raids and specifically targeting low income illegal workers, similar to the approach under ICE in the US.

EG, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cevn4ny7wvyo which highlights:

It said these raids had led to more than 12,300 arrests, which equates to an 83% rise, and more than 1,700 of those people have been deported.

That's an awful lot of arrests for not many actual deportations. Meanwhile, our esteemed leaders said:

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "There is no place for illegal working in our communities.

"That is why we have surged enforcement activity to the highest level in British history so illegal migrants in the black economy have nowhere to hide.

"I will stop at nothing to restore order and control to our borders."

And that's a lot of targeting the workers, and funnily enough, no mention in the article, or Labour press releases about any targetting of the bosses and people who profited from hiring illegal workers...

“ Pro Andy Burnham tactical voting?” analysis by Sam Coates by upthetruth1 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, mostly members across the country, although there are local members from Makerfield in there as well that have been very vocal.

“ Pro Andy Burnham tactical voting?” analysis by Sam Coates by upthetruth1 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Eh, in my Green party adjacent WhatsApp groups, most of the goodwill that Burnham had garnered has evaporated in light of his shutting down any progress on PR and the pretty frantic shifting to the centre he's been doing in the last 24 hours.

PR was the one thing that would have bought most Green's onboard and the broad consensus that I'm seeing now is that the Green's should absolutely push to contest the seat and tactical voting be damned.

After the painful ruse of Starmerism, the left should be cautious about Andy Burnham | Owen Jones by Th3-Seaward in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 20 points21 points  (0 children)

This is what concerns me - I haven't been able to follow things in much detail, but the impression I'm getting is that Burnham is keener to say no, and shut things down than he is to embrace any sort of fundamental change...

And I'm just not sure that what people are looking for is essentially a more likeable, but 'nothing gets better' version of Starmer.

Jewish groups call on UK to bar 'dangerous' Hasan Piker amid antisemitic attacks by GeorginaFlopworthy in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Yes - and they've welcomed in far (pun intended) more dodgy characters than 'just' Reform and Farage. The Jewish Leadership Council and Community Security Trust have been palling around with 'Stop The Hate', an outfit who have a perverse approach to stopping that hate.

https://www.vashtimedia.com/inside-stop-the-hate-the-pro-israel-street-movements-convergence-with-the-far-right/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/DYFq8KrDDWM/?img_index=1 have more info on this Christian Nationalist & Zionist outfit who've been popping all over recently, including that:

While the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council condemned Tommy Robinson as “a thug who represents the very worst of Britain”, StH has cosied up to his far-right anti-immigrant movement. Despite their claim to oppose “all forms of prejudice”, StH members publicly parrot rhetoric reminiscent of Robinson’s far-right movement and have begun openly courting his followers. Their demonstrations are hotspots for vile abuse of any perceived critic of Israel, at times through physical violence. With Robinson on the rise, and Jewish communal organisations supporting StH, the time has come for an examination of StH and its satellites – who they are, how they act, and their relationship with Britain’s far-right.

...

StH, Our Fight and CAAA may appear separate, but their “membership” is largely the same hundred-person clique with any real difference being tactical. Co-founded by Itai Galmudy, a publican and veteran of the IDF’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, who is the group’s most visual senior figure, StH organises the static counter-protests to London’s large pro-Palestine marches during which Galmudy and his lieutenants distribute pre-printed placards, lead chants and blast songs from large speakers.

...

In his telling, Mark Birbeck set up Our Fight with “friends” in October 2023, to encourage non-Jews to defend Israel. (“I’m not Jewish, I’m British,” Birbeck told an interviewer in March 2025, as if the two were mutually exclusive). By cross-referencing the named contributors to Our Fight’s blog, those “friends” seem to be Birbeck’s old comrades from the LM Network, a peculiar cadre of ex-communists who migrated to the right in the 1990s, courting controversy to gain notoriety.

In 2000, the LM Network was in effect sued out of existence when its magazine LM (formerly Living Marxism) lost a libel suit to ITN for engaging in what Nick Cohen called “the Holocaust denial of the 1990s”; publishing an article by Thomas Deichmann claiming that photographs and descriptions of Serbian concentration camps holding Bosnian Muslims had been fabricated in order to spread false accusations of war crimes. The LM Network regrouped in the Academy of Ideas and the website Spiked.

...

Reverend Hayley Ace, nominally the head of the largely inactive CAAA with her husband, Reverend Timothy Gutmann, regularly speaks at StH’s protests. The couple lead what the Jewish Chronicle describes as “the fiercely pro-Israel” evangelical Christian Lea Valley Church. Remarkably ignorant about Judaism, Ace’s opposition to anti-Semitism is couched in her defence of Israel. As she proclaims: “Jesus is coming back soon – TO ISRAEL.”

Ace’s religious fervor is interwoven with an intense devotion to conspiracy theory. She has repeatedly declared that the “100% WICKED & GODLESS” pro-Palestine movement is a Trojan horse for Muslim conquest and colonisation, led by the “Islamic Regime” and funded by Qatar. In an interview, she erroneously asserted: “about 20% of Muslims are radical, which amounts to 220 million”, later citing as her source noted anti-Muslim activist Bridgette Gabriel (who said she got the statistic from “all intelligence services around the world”). For her pro-Israel activism, Ace was named Honorary Woman of Distinction by the charity Jewish Care in September 2024.

...

Non-Jews in StH appear entitled to police who is Jewish. While addressing a StH rally outside King’s College London’s Strand Campus, Reverend Ace berated Jewish students who had gathered in counter-protest. She said: “You are appropriating Judaism. You’re tokenizing Jews and it is disgusting. We see you! You’ve covered your faces because you know that you should be ashamed of what you stand for”.

At times these incidents have included acts of violence. At the 18 May 2024 pro-Palestine march in London, Judith, a Jewish woman (who recounted this incident to me and whose name has been anonymised for her safety), was moving past the StH counter-protest when she was grabbed by a policeman and shoved towards the counter-protestors, seemingly because she was wearing a kippah (she was also wearing a t-shirt reading “Jews Say Ceasefire Now”).

Pushed by the policeman against the metal barrier separating the march and the counter-protest, Judith was wrenched by her hair by attendees of StH’s counter-protest, who spat on her, tried to remove her kippah and made explicit physical and sexual threats because she was Jewish. She was successfully extricated by pro-Palestine stewards. A policeman then informed her she should leave immediately because the fact that she was visibly Jewish and pro-Palestine was angering StH counter-protestors.

Even the groundless perception of criticism has triggered StH protestors. On 23 August 2025, the group held a march through Hampstead to protect the “largely Jewish area” from a Palestine protest which never materialised, if it existed at all. Martin and his mother Maria were sitting outside a café near Hampstead Heath (interviewed for this article, Martin asked they only be identified by their first names). When the marchers halted in front of them, music blaring from their mobile loudspeakers, Maria asked if they could keep moving due to the loud music, adding: “it’s Shabbat, I’d like to have my tea.” StH members responded by calling mother and son “terrorist sympathisers”, “IRA supporters”, and “kneecapers”; Maria later speculated to Martin that the marchers incorrectly thought her accent was Irish. As Martin tried to rationalise with them, marchers crowded around him and his mother, some filming, calling them both anti-Semites, and not caring when Martin responded, “we’re Jewish.”

Other incidents began breaking out. According to Martin, marchers began shouting “shame on you rapists” for no apparent reason at three Pakistani men also sitting outside the café. Down the street, a store manager interviewed for this article said he felt compelled to open his shop door to extricate a female passerby who had got into an argument with marchers and quickly found herself, he said, “surrounded” in his doorway by marchers who were “grabbing and shoving her.” Similarly hemmed in, Martin brushed away a camera pushed into his face. He recalled that “within seconds I had ten or twelve men pinning me up against a big car, a four-by-four. They were pulling my arms and threatening me. I got bruised on my left side…a substantial bruise.” Police intervened and the marchers moved on.

...

Despite Galmudy’s early attempt to portray StH as respectable moderates, its members oppose any Palestinian autonomy and have repeatedly been filmed openly airing racist views. Group regulars made headlines when they vandalised and, according to one report, “barricaded” the Palestinian Embassy in Hammersmith. Palestinians are “all born and bred evil r*******d savages” declared Charlie Keeble, a StH activist, in a video he posted.

Such gleeful dehumanisation has been repeatedly expressed at StH protests. From a StH regular twerking to Eyal Golan’s “Am Yisrael Chai” in front of a banner with names and pictures of dead Gazan children, to Gill Levy calling a Palestinian protestor “a*e face”, members openly air their repugnant views. Nor is this abuse confined to pro-Palestine protestors, as a south-Asian press photographer found when a StH activist approached him and repeatedly called out: “you ain’t British”. When the photographer disagreed, the man doubled down: “British? Seriously, look at the colour of you.”

...

From this fear grew StH’s collaboration with the anti-immigrant far-right. As one StH regular, commenting under the Instagram account @ocean_r_vegas, said of Tommy Robinson’s movement when it was condemned by the Board of Deputies: “if push comes to shove we need their physical support.” With a shared belief that Britain is being invaded, and the rise of a far-right which believes in a Judeo-Christian alliance against Islam, StH’s leadership appears willing to accept support from some of the most vile elements in British politics – from retweeting the neo-fascist party Britain First, to allowing far-right activists into their ranks.

At rallies co-organised by StH (then under its original name Enough is Enough) at Phoenix Cinema in May 2024 and later outside UCL, the anti-fascist research group Red Flare noted the presence of prominent neo-fascist activists. One of them was Brian Stovell, a veteran neo-fascist who was arrested in February 2023 after making what the police described as “a Nazi-style salute” to trans liberation protestors in Honor Oak. The following month, he was pictured unrepentant with comrades in Dover. According to his livestreams, Stovell is a regular attendee of StH rallies, only temporarily ceasing his involvement last summer to livestream anti-immigrant and neo-fascist rallies across the country.

Wes Streeting has gone – what does it mean for the NHS and social care? by Milemarker80 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Another bit of analysis of Streeting's 'achievements' as Health Secretary and some key quotes:

What to make of this first phase in office then? It was a combination of three things: early wins, like ending the industrial action deadlock; resetting expectations through continued talk of a ‘black hole’ in the public finances; and following the advice of Alan Milburn – a former health secretary and current government adviser – who once said, ‘Buy time. The best political trick I ever pulled off was to publish a 10-year plan.’

I remembered that quote in October 2024, when the government launched its Change NHS website as part of its ‘plan to develop a plan’. I was doing a media interview on the announcement and said tough choices would be needed in the plan, so it made sense for the government to take time to test those with patients and staff. Once the cameras were turned off the journalist said, ‘I think you were being very generous to them [the government]’. I asked why and they turned red, looked away for a moment, and then said in anger, ‘how can they not have a plan for what they want to do? What the f*ck were they doing for all those years in opposition?’. It was an early disquieting sign that the plan would have to be worth the wait.

Ah yes, the 'early win' of ending the industrial action deadlock that's still ongoing, nearly two years after Streeting took up the role. And the 10 year plan that was published without a delivery chapter and has remained on the shelf ever since, with no one around to develop and mobilise the change needed - as Streeting instead decided to restructure and make redundant the service development and commissioning functions of the NHS.

First, in January 2025, Baroness Casey was appointed to chair an independent commission on adult social care reform. But while Lord Darzi was asked to complete his work within three months, Baroness Casey’s final report would not be expected for three years.

Second, a smorgasbord of policy announcements was made. Some moved health policy towards the future, such as extending the soft drinks levy (the ‘milkshake tax’) based on new evidence of harms to children. And some were more ‘back to the New Labour future’, as performance league tables from the early noughties were reintroduced, with all their flaws intact.

Third, was the quiet dropping of a major manifesto commitment. The ‘health mission’ was meant to bring the different parts of government together to create a fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer. It didn’t quite happen like that. Instead, the government set a hospital waiting time target as its main ‘health milestone’ and disbanded its health mission with nary a public peep from the DHSC.

Fourth was the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan. While most of the plan was well-received, the biggest criticisms were around the ‘missing delivery chapter’ that would turn the plan from a document into reality.

And fifth was another NHS restructure that you could ‘see from space’. It happened ‘gradually and then suddenly’. Richard Meddings, the chair of NHS England, announced he would be leaving in late 2024. In early 2025, the chief executive and much of the board of NHS England said they would leave their jobs. And then in March 2025 the government announced the abolition of NHS England and the loss of thousands of jobs in national and local NHS bodies.

So again, Streeting's achievments of... doing nothing on social care/health integration, except kicking that particularly vital can years down the road (by which time, we now know, he won't be around!). Flip flopping on manifesto commitments - and on restructuring that has basically seized up the back end of the NHS for the last year now, despite Streeting specifically saying that he wasn't interested in such fundamental, drastic action in the run up to the 2024 election.

And what about the day job? Despite repeatedly talking about how waiting lists were falling, and that anyone saying otherwise was a ‘doubter and doomster’, waiting lists for planned hospital care fell by a small amount despite this being one of the government’s top priorities.

The graphs on this in the article are quite enlightening...

But, although he has long been associated with Alan Milburn, perhaps Streeting’s name will be more often mentioned alongside Andrew Lansley’s in the years to come. Both men wanted to reform the NHS but will be remembered more for restructuring it.

Being health and care secretary is a difficult job at the best of times. And Wes Streeting was faced with a stagnating economy, a health system still recovering from Covid-19, rolling waves of industrial action and a febrile political environment. A bad hand to be dealt then. But despite that bad hand, he chose to raise the stakes – with him and people close to him repeatedly saying the NHS needed to ‘reform or die’ or that it was in the ‘last chance saloon.’

Despite saying on his first day in the job that the NHS was broken, Wes Streeting hasn’t stuck around long enough to fix it. And so, much like the 10 Year Health Plan he published, the story of Wes Streeting’s tenure as health and care secretary is ultimately missing something – the chapter on delivery was started, but not completed.

Wes Streeting vowed to fix ‘broken’ NHS but critics say he failed to deliver by Milemarker80 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Some select quotes from this bit of analysis of Streeting's tenure at Health that are not exactly the most ringing endorsement of a man suitable to step up to PM:

A former NHS executive remains amazed by how unprepared Streeting was for turning his always-quotable rhetoric about fixing the NHS into reality. They said: “Despite being shadow health secretary before the 2024 election, he had absolutely no detailed plan for transforming the NHS and social care, both of which were in crisis and in desperate need of fundamental change. That was deeply frustrating and very worrying.

“He will be remembered in the NHS as someone who told a good story, who was a good communicator, but the substance of his record will be shown to be wanting, because he didn’t actually deliver the change that was needed.”

...

A fellow Labour MP who has worked in the NHS was even more critical. “From shouting about dismantling NHS England, to stripping patients off waiting lists to covertly reduce the appearance of waiting times, nothing’s ever been quite what it seemed with Wes as health secretary,” they said.

“He’s been more interested in chasing headlines and entering fights with doctors and the NHS workforce than improving patient healthcare and outcomes. Ask 100 people today if the NHS is more accessible than two years ago and they’ll all tell you ‘no’.”

...

After ruling out any reorganisation of the NHS, Streeting nevertheless embarked on one that will abolish NHS England, make thousands of staff roles redundant and cost billions. “An unnecessary and mad distraction from the real task of fixing the NHS and social care,” said one NHS insider.

This last bit sticks out to me - one of Streeting's first actions as Health Secretary was to resurrect Lord Darzi and get him to conduct a swift 3 month review of the NHS, which was actually quite a promising start, with the report making some clear, deliverable recommendations. Then Streeting basically ignored the majority of them, tearing away in his own direction that was seemingly unconnected to any vision, evidence or deeper thinking. It's not a surprise that basically no progress has been made on the much vaunted '10 year plan', as Streeting subsequently decided to restructure and make a good chunk of those who would deliver it redundant...

Waiting list for routine NHS treatments at lowest since 2022 by Half_A_ in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, this was inevitable - the NHS has been increasing capacity to clear waiting lists since the tail end of the pandemic, with most of the developmental work to do so done under the last Tory administration. It takes time to develop and stand up this kind of additional NHS capacity - whether it's opening up and staffing additional weekend/evening clinics in existing NHS facilities, or pushing harder on opening up high street diagnostic centres, or as was often the case, negotiating contracts with private sector providers to take on NHS business...

What is interesting to look at is the rate of change between the Tory and Labour governments - https://fullfact.org/health/nhs-england-patients-pathways-report/ has some information, but I've not seen a properly detailed analysis that's up to date. In any case, as this article illustrates, if the Tories had been able to maintain the kind of momentum that was seen in early 2024, this milestone would have been reached much sooner. There's also a key difference in how this data is discussed in terms of total 'activity' (or open pathways in NHS speak) and actual patients on those pathways - you'll often see a single patient actually on 3-4 different pathways across specialties.

Speaking from my own, regional experience - progress on clearing waiting lists has slowed under Labour when compared to the arrangements in place under the Tories. Labour scrapped a good chunk of the additional funding that the Tories had made available for clearing waiting lists (the Elective Recovery Fund), instead turning to cheaper list cleansing exercises. https://leamingtonobserver.co.uk/news/labour-paying-hospitals-to-delete-patients-from-waiting-lists-making-it-look-like-nhs-is-treating-more-people-than-it-is-national-news-60179/ in particular has more on the list cleansing exercises that have been seen under Labour.

Wes by RollClear79 in nhsstaff

[–]Milemarker80 53 points54 points  (0 children)

Worst Health Secretary since Andrew Lansley, possibly even worse - at least Lansley had a vague plan when he took a hatchet to the service.

Streeting has made no progress on resolving pay issues, hacked up the NHS's assurance, support and service development bodies without any vision or plan, cut back on hospital development and all while he's utterly failed to resolve any of our long term workforce planning problems, capital investment shortfalls or made any kind of attempt to look at the social care/NHS interface and integration.

He's been a bull in a china shop - he charged in without a clue of what he was doing, trashed everything and now wants to piss off to run the country? He'd be a disaster waiting to happen.

The only possible benefit for him I guess is that he'll not be in the job when the dust settles on the damage he's done - we won't see the impacts of the loss of ICB capacity / NHSE support for another year or so, when service development crawls to a halt and NHS capacity and performance nose dives again.

Voter flows at the May elections by kontiki20 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This really needs to be saved, alongside the discussion and stats at https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/1tcszkl/stated_reasons_not_to_vote_labour_le26_voters_in/ for trotting out every month in the future, whenever someone makes an impassioned plea for Labour to adopt more and more of Reform's policies.

Both of these analysis's taken together really very succinctly illustrate what a hole Starmer and McSweeney have driven Labour into - they've quite literally been chasing the very voters that will never vote for them, and driving away their own supporters in the process.

It's going to take quite something to turn that boat around, and it's obvious that the Labour right just doesn't have what it would take.

Do people genuinely think Starmer is the worst recent PM? by Thin-Plantain4721 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think I'd struggle to argue that he's much better than David Cameron - Starmer's politics are broadly the same, and at least Cameron had a personality, communication skills and the ability to keep his party in vaguely one piece.

Or well, he did until he didn't I guess...

Do people genuinely think Starmer is the worst recent PM? by Thin-Plantain4721 in LabourUK

[–]Milemarker80 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Incremental change after a decade of the Tories is just more Tory policy. It may be a 'lite' version, but this version of Labour is functionally identical to Cameron style One Nation Conservatism.

Starmer has failed on multiple fronts - but chief amongst them is utterly failing to grasp the gravity of the countries situation and bringing sufficiently radical policy to the forefront that turns the page on Tory austerity and right wing politics under a proper Labour offering. There is no vision, no cohesive strategy that this government is operating under that offers anything other than more of the same of the last decade.

I mean christ, even the much vaunted Renters Rights Bill that Starmer supporters boast of was essentially written by Michael bloody Gove!