The Starmer Years - Can The New Broom Sweep Clean?

[Lord Duckhunter]

3 hours ago, egg said:

Yep, think it through, reality check it, announce it. It's not difficult. 

I'm not sure I can remember so much flip flopping from any previous government. 

Farcical. 

It causes issues within his mps as well as the public. You can’t keep sending ministers out to defend unpopular polices which are then ditched. Who is going to want to go out and defend this jury trial stuff on the Sunday morning round, they’ll face continued questions as to whether they’ll U-turn, as well as looking stupid when youve defended it publicly and they then do a 180 shift . Loyal ministers won’t like being hung out to dry, Boris had the same problem when he started veering about abandoning stuff. Every U turn weakens you internally, and that’s before you factor in the public reaction. 

Edited yesterday at 12:50 by Lord Duckhunter

[hypochondriac]

3 hours ago, rallyboy said:

The occasional U-turn with a policy that proves unworkable when it leaves the drawing board is acceptable, but this is happening too often.

Keep the crazy ideas behind closed doors, only launch the sensible ones. 

They won't be launching much in that case!

[tdmickey3]

28 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

They won't be launching much in that case!

I know you are anti Labour what ever they do but that is a bit of a stupid comment...

[rallyboy]

Boris never did a U-turn!

If he set his heart on appointing a corrupt moron or a friend with no experience into a key role, or he just wanted to line his own pockets with tax payers' cash while holding secret meetings with Russia, he always delivered.

He might have been responsible for thousands of Covid deaths and the loss of billions of pounds and our reputation on the international stage, but he was decisive! ✊

 

[AlexLaw76]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

It causes issues within his mps as well as the public. You can’t keep sending ministers out to defend unpopular polices which are then ditched. Who is going to want to go out and defend this jury trial stuff on the Sunday morning round, they’ll face continued questions as to whether they’ll U-turn, as well as looking stupid when youve defended it publicly and they then do a 180 shift . Loyal ministers won’t like being hung out to dry, Boris had the same problem when he started veering about abandoning stuff. Every U turn weakens you internally, and that’s before you factor in the public reaction. 

They should have a minister of state for U-turns

just to keep it clean and simple. Maybe Nick Brown could get the gig… 👀

[Holmes_and_Watson]

4 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

They should have a minister of state for U-turns

just to keep it clean and simple. Maybe Nick Brown could get the gig… 👀

Starmer announced they were going to have one, but then... 🙂

[hypochondriac]

2 hours ago, tdmickey3 said:

I know you are anti Labour what ever they do but that is a bit of a stupid comment...

It was a slightly flippant comment. Absolutely not anti labour whatever they do by the way. You'll see a few examples on this very thread where I've praised them when they've done well. The problem is they are few and far between for obvious reasons.

[hypochondriac]

2 hours ago, rallyboy said:

Boris never did a U-turn!

If he set his heart on appointing a corrupt moron or a friend with no experience into a key role, or he just wanted to line his own pockets with tax payers' cash while holding secret meetings with Russia, he always delivered.

He might have been responsible for thousands of Covid deaths and the loss of billions of pounds and our reputation on the international stage, but he was decisive! ✊

 

Yeah proper shit were the conservatives. Not sure it makes what Labour are doing -or not doing-any better though.

[Farmer Saint]

21 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Yeah proper shit were the conservatives. Not sure it makes what Labour are doing -or not doing-any better though.

Correct, it doesn't. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the Tories are a better alternative because they've shown they're really not.

Politics needs reform. Big pay rises needed for new MPs to attract the right people into politics. No-one that I sit with would even look to consider it, but they're the type of people we should look to attract.

[tdmickey3]

44 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

It was a slightly flippant comment. Absolutely not anti labour whatever they do by the way. You'll see a few examples on this very thread where I've praised them when they've done well. The problem is they are few and far between for obvious reasons.

It is only the bad stuff that the news rags harp on about much like PMQs with Badenock moaning about a few things and having the her party (what’s left of them) vote against anything good, truly pathetic behaviour 

[Weston Super Saint]

25 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

 

Politics needs reform.

Gulp  

[iansums]

3 hours ago, tdmickey3 said:

I know you are anti Labour what ever they do but that is a bit of a stupid comment...

Sense of humour bypass?

[iansums]

7 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Gulp  

Yeah, good to see Farmer coming round to the right way of thinking 😁

[AlexLaw76]

2 minutes ago, iansums said:

Yeah, good to see Farmer coming round to the right way of thinking 😁

I guess the new broom is not sweeping clean

[hypochondriac]

20 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

It is only the bad stuff that the news rags harp on about much like PMQs with Badenock moaning about a few things and having the her party (what’s left of them) vote against anything good, truly pathetic behaviour 

As always with every single opposition party, they'll vote against a bill because of the implications or because it's not how they would handle it and then the people in charge will accuse them of wanting to see starving kids or dead grannies. It's very irritating but that's politics for you whoever is in charge. It's one reason I had a bit of respect for Andy Burnham in local politics when he praised the Conservatives for doing something he thought was a good idea. I'd like more of that on both sides quite frankly but tbf labour have done an absolute shed load of bad stuff over the last year.

Edited 21 hours ago by hypochondriac

[hypochondriac]

40 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Correct, it doesn't. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the Tories are a better alternative because they've shown they're really not.

Politics needs reform. Big pay rises needed for new MPs to attract the right people into politics. No-one that I sit with would even look to consider it, but they're the type of people we should look to attract.

Agree with that. MPs should be much much more competent and more highly paid.

[egg]

32 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Agree with that. MPs should be much much more competent and more highly paid.

I've got mixed feelings on this. I agree that we need good people in parliament, but we also need people bringing a range of experiences and backgrounds. As things stand, any decent professional or business person willing to become an MP would likely to be doing it for the right reasons, rather than money. Chucking a corporate level package at candidates may just attract mercenaries. 

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, iansums said:

Yeah, good to see Farmer coming round to the right way of thinking 😁

I'm not sure I've ever said anything to the contrary - in fact I have said this consistently.

[Gloucester Saint]

9 hours ago, Turkish said:

Another U-turn from Keir 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3385zrrx73o

 

Listening to stakeholders and the electorate about wrong-headed policies = good thing

Using the electorate as a Beta test facility for rushed/incompletely analysed policies without clear implementation = not acceptable, Starmer needs to do better, a lot better. I personally think they’ll replace him in the summer.

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Gulp  

 

1 hour ago, iansums said:

Yeah, good to see Farmer coming round to the right way of thinking 😁

Ah...I see what I did.

Thank God I didn't capitalise it or I'd be bang to rights.

[hypochondriac]

53 minutes ago, egg said:

I've got mixed feelings on this. I agree that we need good people in parliament, but we also need people bringing a range of experiences and backgrounds. As things stand, any decent professional or business person willing to become an MP would likely to be doing it for the right reasons, rather than money. Chucking a corporate level package at candidates may just attract mercenaries. 

Surely you have a much more rigorous process and make it much easier to get rid of people not doing a competent job. Frankly I don't care if someone is in it for the money if the job they do is excellent. If they get rich of the back of serious success for the country then everyone wins.

[egg]

9 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Surely you have a much more rigorous process and make it much easier to get rid of people not doing a competent job. Frankly I don't care if someone is in it for the money if the job they do is excellent. If they get rich of the back of serious success for the country then everyone wins.

I'm not sure you can bin off poorly performing people who are democratically elected. Seems to me that the due diligence needs to be done in advance. 

Re the money, my point is more that MP's are there primarily to represent their constituents. Having people who want to represent those people for the right reasons, is vital imo. The issue is that those people may be absolutely shocking as ministers.

There's no perfect solution, but fundamentally we agree that we need better people in parliament. 

 

[The Kraken]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

I'm not sure you can bin off poorly performing people who are democratically elected. Seems to me that the due diligence needs to be done in advance. 

Re the money, my point is more that MP's are there primarily to represent their constituents. Having people who want to represent those people for the right reasons, is vital imo. The issue is that those people may be absolutely shocking as ministers.

There's no perfect solution, but fundamentally we agree that we need better people in parliament. 

 

This is exactly it as far as I’m concerned. A really good local MP is one who makes themselves available as much as possible for their constituents and gets fully involved with local matters. The problem comes in that it’s a different skill set to be a good local MP and to be a good minister. Ministers should probably be paid more, but then the ladder to becoming one requires you for the most part to start at local level. So it’s a difficult balance. People like Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer weren’t put off of getting into politics because the money was bad. But I doubt either of them were particularly devoted local MPs, they always had aspirations for ministerial roles. There’s a place for that and also one for someone who just wants to spend their time locally. So it’s a difficult balance.

I would want my MP to be active in the community and to be available for meeting constituents by appointment, then acting on the issues that they can.  And to have a small staff who can triage all that (rather than just use their budget for employing family members). I don’t think that job role requires a leap in funding from what it already is.

[Lord Duckhunter]

The other problem is the lack of local accountability as we’re too centralised. MP’s end up dealing with issues that are basically down to councils. Poole have a labour MP, and to be fair to the guy he gets involved with lots of local issues. However, most of them could be fixed if voters had more faith in the local council actually doing their fucking job. People moan about MP’s but more local councillors and councils are rotten to the core. They don’t come under half the scrutiny they should do. It started with Maggie and subsequent leaders haven’t handed real power back locally. Councils don’t really get punished for incompetence because they can point the blame at central government. I bet half MP’s issues could be dealt with locally, freeing them up to be better MP’s. They spread their time too thinly at the moment. 

[AlexLaw76]

We need to give our local MPs more money, this will allow them to constantly bang on about Palestine even more.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, egg said:

I'm not sure you can bin off poorly performing people who are democratically elected. Seems to me that the due diligence needs to be done in advance. 

Re the money, my point is more that MP's are there primarily to represent their constituents. Having people who want to represent those people for the right reasons, is vital imo. The issue is that those people may be absolutely shocking as ministers.

There's no perfect solution, but fundamentally we agree that we need better people in parliament. 

 

Make recall petitions easier when you've lost the trust of the electorate. Personal I find it mental that any party can get to power through a manifesto that they largely junk and then do loads of other stuff they had never spoken about prior to getting into power and using their elected mandate as justification. 

[whelk]

23 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Make recall petitions easier when you've lost the trust of the electorate

Based on a latest poll? 

[hypochondriac]

22 minutes ago, whelk said:

Based on a latest poll? 

Obviously not.

[east-stand-nic]

Seems Starmer has gone a bit Trumpesque then.....of course no doubt the dictatorship apologists will say this is completely different. It isn't. No matter what you say. They let in KNOWN terrorists, so why not this lady? He is a dictator. Accept it. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grok-starmer-elon-musk-eva-vlaardingerbroek-ban-b2900753.html

[whelk]

8 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Obviously not.

How would you gauge this ‘loss of trust’ then?

[Weston Super Saint]

48 minutes ago, whelk said:

How would you gauge this ‘loss of trust’ then?

Facebook.

[egg]

2 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Facebook.

And advertise the suggested replacements on marketplace. Sorted. 

[egg]

55 minutes ago, east-stand-nic said:

Seems Starmer has gone a bit Trumpesque then.....of course no doubt the dictatorship apologists will say this is completely different. It isn't. No matter what you say. They let in KNOWN terrorists, so why not this lady? He is a dictator. Accept it. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grok-starmer-elon-musk-eva-vlaardingerbroek-ban-b2900753.html

That's daft even by your standards. I'll entertain that kind of attempt at equivalence when Starmer has a private Gestapo rounding up brown people, steals countries, etc, etc. 

[east-stand-nic]

11 minutes ago, egg said:

That's daft even by your standards. I'll entertain that kind of attempt at equivalence when Starmer has a private Gestapo rounding up brown people, steals countries, etc, etc. 

So, all the uproar on here about Trump banning people and making visas harder etc, NOT OK. But Starmer does the same thing here and bans someone due to their OPINION and it is OK yes?

[egg]

2 minutes ago, east-stand-nic said:

So, all the uproar on here about Trump banning people and making visas harder etc, NOT OK. But Starmer does the same thing here and bans someone due to their OPINION and it is OK yes?

I thought you were one of the people wanting us to limit who we let in, as per Trump. Make your mind up. 

[east-stand-nic]

8 minutes ago, egg said:

I thought you were one of the people wanting us to limit who we let in, as per Trump. Make your mind up. 

Yep. Same old same old. Cannot answer a simple question as it shows you do indeed have double standards again. Just wanted to check. That'll do for me.

[tdmickey3]

1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

Seems Starmer has gone a bit Trumpesque then.....of course no doubt the dictatorship apologists will say this is completely different. It isn't. No matter what you say. They let in KNOWN terrorists, so why not this lady? He is a dictator. Accept it. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grok-starmer-elon-musk-eva-vlaardingerbroek-ban-b2900753.html

 

21 minutes ago, east-stand-nic said:

So, all the uproar on here about Trump banning people and making visas harder etc, NOT OK. But Starmer does the same thing here and bans someone due to their OPINION and it is OK yes?

 

8 minutes ago, east-stand-nic said:

Yep. Same old same old. Cannot answer a simple question as it shows you do indeed have double standards again. Just wanted to check. That'll do for me.

Oh dear niccy, used up the 3 posts limit and made to look utterly stupid again... 🤣

Nothing changes does it 🤡

[hypochondriac]

2 hours ago, whelk said:

How would you gauge this ‘loss of trust’ then?

I'd make it so that constituents can initiate a recall petition with a certain number of signatures. Once a threshold is met you're out.

[Farmer Saint]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d041pp85mo

Better than expected.

Edited 5 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

So, all the uproar on here about Trump banning people and making visas harder etc, NOT OK. But Starmer does the same thing here and bans someone due to their OPINION and it is OK yes?

Where was the uproar mate? A handful posters (if that) making some points on a football forum is hardly an uproar.

Edited 5 hours ago by JohnnyShearer2.0

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

9 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d041pp85mo

Better than expected.

Aren't UK borrowing costs down as well?

So some sliver of positive news. Not that we wouldn't know it if you look at some websites, no mention at all at this time.

Edited 5 hours ago by JohnnyShearer2.0

[tdmickey3]

19 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I'd make it so that constituents can initiate a recall petition with a certain number of signatures. Once a threshold is met you're out.

Lol, the vote would happen every week because there is always someone who is unhappy about something

[Farmer Saint]

4 minutes ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

Aren't UK borrowing costs down as well?

So some sliver of positive news. Not that we wouldn't know it if you look at some websites, no mention at all at this time.

Indeed they are:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/14/uk-borrowing-costs-drop-interest-rate-cuts-bond-yields-gilts

As you say, slivers of positive news.

[Lord Duckhunter]

9 minutes ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

Aren't UK borrowing costs down as well?

So some sliver of positive news. Not that we wouldn't know it.

Yeah good news, yields on 10-year gilts are back down to  Liz Truss levels…

[tdmickey3]

7 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Indeed they are:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/14/uk-borrowing-costs-drop-interest-rate-cuts-bond-yields-gilts

As you say, slivers of positive news.

Funny how the good news is not shouted from the rooftops like the bad news is in the news rags and failed MP`s

[Farmer Saint]

10 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Funny how the good news is not shouted from the rooftops like the bad news is in the news rags and failed MP`s

TBF it's still way too high, but yeah, the right wing press won't ever shout about it.

Edited 5 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[iansums]

14 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

I'm not sure I've ever said anything to the contrary - in fact I have said this consistently.

I think you missed the joke, you stated 'Politics needs reform', note the word 'reform'. Sorry, you did get it, eventually 🙂

Edited 5 hours ago by iansums
Read later posts

[Lord Duckhunter]

😂😂 Dinosaurs stuck in the 1980’s, “It’s The Sun wot won it”….. I can see them now, reading the “right wing press” during their coffee breaks, moaning that nobody gets the good news because it’s not in the paper. 😂… I would comment on the actual substance of it, but I’m totally in the dark until my paper boy turns up with my paper. 

[Weston Super Saint]

36 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Funny how the good news is not shouted from the rooftops like the bad news is in the news rags and failed MP`s

Good news rarely sells papers / gains clicks..

[whelk]

41 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

😂😂 Dinosaurs stuck in the 1980’s, “It’s The Sun wot won it”….. I can see them now, reading the “right wing press” during their coffee breaks, moaning that nobody gets the good news because it’s not in the paper. 😂… I would comment on the actual substance of it, but I’m totally in the dark until my paper boy turns up with my paper. 

Can just imagine what a balanced feed the algorithms will have for this guy. He’ll guffaw at Starmer in a bikini