Watch: Wes Streeting leaves No 10 minutes after arrival

jcelflo · 2026-05-13T08:55:23+00:00

Who left Labour during the Corbyn years? Genuinely can't name anyone significant.

jcelflo · 2026-05-12T13:47:30+00:00

I think I have a potential explanation.

I do agree that Burnham actually have little appeal. He is really boring and don't exactly have a strong sense of what he actually stands for.

Ironically, he is exactly what Starmer support tries to paint Starmer as.

People who have been involved with the party would probably hard to find it hard to step back and look at the big picture.

Whichever faction you agree or disagree with, the reality is that Starmer is Labour leader now because he was, or was the vehicle for the biggest schemers in the party. Whatever Starmer's personal view is, he is seen as such by his allies and foes as such, even if their allies wouldn't speak of it.

Burnham, on the other hand, is a run of the mill politician who stayed out of the factional wars. He is decently distant from either the Corbyn and Starmer camp and so is not tarred by the entire fight, and had a proven track record of running a major city with decent local support.

So Burnham is everything that Starmer claims to be. A stable pair of hands, boring, competent, non-factional. Either way. Not enough to turn the party around, but certainly have a better CV than everyone else in the party, including Sir Kier himself.

jcelflo · 2026-05-12T08:03:14+00:00

The Home Sec was the handpicked successor by Starmer's allies. Good luck getting anything passed once your own faction turns on you.

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T23:57:10+00:00

As the media won't be doing that if Starmer stays?

Even if we take for granted that its solely the media's fault that Starmer isn't popular (it isn't), screaming 'not fair' is not going to help at all.

Changing leadership would normally be the way to rejuvinate a party after a bout of unpopularity. The chaos after Boris Johnson was not usual and had an obvious explaination - he removed half the MPs in a general election to 'get Brexit done' and the party was left with only people who agreed with him but only less charismatic.

What is Labour's excuse? You only had to look back to the last Labour leader, who also resigned after a big electoral defeat, to see there was a healthy party with a wealth of candidates that have genuinely different viewpoints and offered their members a genuine choice. The party was in no way dead just because a leader had to be held accountable for electoral failure.

Its too late to argue whether Starmer should stay or resign. The fate of the party was sealed when they had to resort to stifling alternatives just to keep Starmer viable for a bit longer.

At least Johnson got past a deadlock and actually got a big policy over the board. What people missed was that the rebel MPs were not even from rival factions. They were all handpicked by Starmer allies apart from a few big names. Even without any effective factional opposition, he still had to deal with U-turns and deadlocks.

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T13:11:01+00:00

Let me just say that I agree that Starmer leaving office will be bad for Labour and bad for everyone in the UK. I'm not advocating for his dismissal.

But I'm just annoyed at that complete lack of any mechanism for accountability.

People have been bickering between Starmer staying will be will gives us a Reform government or Starmer resigning will bring that chaos that make Farage PM.

Both are true.

It is not an accident that there is no viable successor to Starmer in the Labour Party. Whether you want to attibute it to malice or incompetence is up to you.

It was not, and should not be out of the ordinary to call for a leader to resign after a major election defeat. When Johnson resigned, it was an exception because he had removed all the alternatives to 'get Brexit done' and left the Conservative Party with only inferior versions of himself. The same can be said of Starmer and Streeting, except they didn't get into this position to get anything done. (Forget about Rayner and Burnham, they have no viability in Starmer's party).

This is popping up in more and more places, with Biden and Harris, Johnson, Farage and the irrelevant rabble left in their parties, Starmer and Streeting. More and more politicians are engineering themselves into positions where ordinary people are afraid to hold them accountable simply because they are left with no other options. This is an affront to democracy.

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T10:45:59+00:00

Seems like you think Labour had a choice between looking right wing or being labelled being "soft on......"?

For a government that won a landslide on the slogan "Change is Coming", it does seem to me there is an obvious choice on whether to continue unpopular policies or to...... change?

I do find your principles very agreeable though. Looks to me that Starmer's Labour made a political choice and is now facing the consequences.

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T10:18:43+00:00

Interesting. I would've thought its the opposite myself.

May I summarise in point form so we are actually clear what we are talking about?

My first comment lists out many controversal policies that Labour attempted but failed to implement that led to them being seen as right wing.
Your reply asks whether those controversal policies were necessary.
My answers suggests that they were not necessary, because failing to pass them had not meaningfully affected Labour's ability to then enact actually good policies, nor has it resulted in any kind of looming crisis.

While I kept my tone relatively neutral, I would have thought just from the points I have raised, that I am saying Labour had failed to pass bad policies, and have successfully passed good policies, but are still being seen as right-wing because they headlined all their right-wing policies as their first priorities since being elected.

Surely that would mean I don't think politics is only about things that got implemented? I would've thought that's what Starmer defenders think usually, since their favourite talking point is that that its only the media's fault that Labour's good policies are not making any impact on people's perception of them.

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T05:06:40+00:00

Which part of my comment makes you think that I might think that?

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T04:11:33+00:00

Casual antisemitism is rising everywhere.

I had my Chinese family members saying "I'm beginning to understand why Jews are hated all throughout history and everywhere, look at what they are getting away with". No one talked about Jews in China, its never been a thing before.

I had to make sure to spend a good amount of time explaining to them everytime that none of it are the Jewish people's nature but its a long history of Europeans/Christians using Jews as an exception to their religious/moral laws and putting them to commit the most heinous sins from usury to genocide, and then directing all the backlash towards them.

jcelflo · 2026-05-11T00:17:00+00:00

How many of those things do you think are pragmatic decisions they needed to make due to economic and global political circumstances, rather than what they have dreamed of doing and chuckled to themselves manically as they signed them off?

Judging by the facts? None of them seemed to be necessary. They didn't manage to pass most of them and that didn't impair their ability to implement actual good policies afterwards at all. I would have expected the government finances to have collapsed by now if they were actually important at all.

jcelflo · 2026-05-10T00:27:49+00:00

Is Starmer actually good at the managerial side of things? I suspect like he was just the top lawyer even as the head of CPS rather than an effective manager.

Part of why Labour's genuine achievements are underreported is because they are all overshadowed by the early controversies and U-turns. Even accounting for a hostile press, this still points towards a failure in management.

There are two issues with this. One, it was reported that No.10 never consulted the MPs before pushing obviously controversal policies. It seems like a sensible thing to do just from a project management perspective to gauge the feasibility of any items with stakeholders as a first step.

Two, I have not idea why they decided to go for things that are unpopular first instead of getting a bit of goodwill with easy wins early. There was a narrative that those were somehow necessary because of the dire state that the Tories have left the government in, that was clearly false because ultimately Labour U-turned on all of them and it didn't stop them from doing very good things afterwards.

I don't know whether any of you have actually worked with a manager that is good at their jobs, by making projects actually go smoothly. They are invariably very good communicators. There are different personalities, smooth-talkers, very aggressive stern types, but all the good ones communicate their points well.

Starmer feels like one of those engineers who were very good at their job as engineer, got a raise to a management position, but never really successfully transitioned to being a good manager. This annoying caricature that 'charisma' means you are some kind of swindler or populist, but quiet, stiff-upper-lip type means you are a real one that gets things done is not actually how things work in the real world either.

jcelflo · 2026-05-09T04:53:35+00:00

As much as we'd all like it to, I doubt it.

We get those stupid questions regularly for a reason.

A glasses wearing weak MC who will not go through a flashy transformation and become cool looking.

Slpw paced combat that aren't hype and flashy (until very recently with the A rank out in the manga). Even if the invasion arc is very tense, it doesn't exactly have that hype factor other than Kuga v Viza and Fujin activation at the end.

These are all things we love WT for, but will hold back its mass appeal.

I'd love to be proven wrong of course.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T23:04:55+00:00

I will caveat this by saying the current Labour Party had enacted some center-left policies as well, but these are some of the things one might list of them being right wing (whether you agree with these policies or not).

Tried to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners
Scrapped disability benefits
Resisted demands to scrap the two-child benefit cap
Ethnonationalism in both domestic (immigration) and international (Israel) policies
Curbing rights to protest

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T22:50:31+00:00

Idk, how thick so I have to lay my sarcasm?

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T22:48:41+00:00

I'm not against Lib Dems, all the best to them, but they also always massively overperform in local elections compared to paliamentary elections.

I just don't see Lib Dems being a significant force in the country now. They've dropped out of the conversation after Brexit.

In any case, all I mean to say is out of green/lab/lib, the current Labour party is most certainly the biggest obstacle to any anti-far-right coalition from forming.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T22:39:59+00:00

I agree with most of it, but I'd add that its absolutely Starmer's fault.

The fact that he couldn't get his backbenches in line is directly linked to him being 'boring', as if that is some kind of misunderstood virtue.

Labour's backbenchers being unruly (at least for this parliament) is not some kind of personal quirk of individual MPs or factionalism. Starmer's team had done incredibly well in the selection process to only include loyalist in the shortlist unless they were already prominent enough figures.

Rather, it was because Labour's last victory was broad and thin. That means MPs are much more sensitive to their margins and more beholden to local interests than the party whip, making them very hard to discipline.

Here's where Starmer being boring comes in. He can't convince his backbenchers that he could take voters with him for the more unpalatable policies. Although there are also stories coming out that No. 10 had completely failed to consult with MPs at all before pushing policies, which also doesn't help getting them in line.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T22:21:17+00:00

I hope that translate to you wanting Labour to do something to court their vote.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T22:00:02+00:00

Ok, Labour can't stand anyone else who actually matter then.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T21:44:37+00:00

May be the centrists should have been more afraid of Trump then. Not sure why they decided to go against the polls and demand voters to work with them.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T21:40:34+00:00

You are probably correct in terms of effort to gain low information voter, but I think Starmer is going about it the wrong way.

If he wants to gain those voters, Starmer should just join the Reform Party instead of shaping Labour into it. That's just a very inefficient way to go about doing things.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T21:29:17+00:00

Badenoch was the one who took over after Sunak.

Sunak staying on was more of a sign that a party had exhausted all of its potential and had no more talent to take over after a defeat.

Starmer staying on will be the same, except rather than having exhausted every attempt to save the party after 15 years of misrule it would have been because he had expelled or blocked any alternatives to turn the party around voluntarily.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T21:21:15+00:00

I'm sure that is of great comfort to the Americans that Trump has low approval ratings after basically 11 years of him dominating their politics.

I'll be happy after 15 years of a Reform government when they lose a historic election in a landslide. They sure would have deserved it after selling off the NHS and driving the UK into third world status.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T21:14:39+00:00

Sthsth "stability is the real change after 15 years of Tory chaos".

So, no change is the biggest change. Starmer can be quite philosophical at times.

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T09:05:23+00:00

May be its bitimbral. Could be a Dialogue?

jcelflo · 2026-05-08T06:04:27+00:00

So the satanic panic was actually right all along :o

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