Maybe things can’t only get better for Keir Starmer, as he is shamed with the latest polling just as the Labour conference begins
Maybe things can’t only get better for Keir Starmer, as he is shamed with the latest polling just as the Labour conference begins
I feel like people don’t like him because he’s as dull as dishwater. I am not a fan of Kier’s politics, but I think he’s practical and level headed. Following 14 years of a Tory shit show - I’m suprised people aren’t happy with having someone like that in the job and winning some brownie points.
The biggest mistake he’s making is that people expected a bit of a shift to oppose what the Conservatives were offering but instead he’s also trying to appeal to the right of politics through a lurch to the right. He’s not charasmatic or radical enough for that to succeed, so has pushed away the left only to fail to win over the right. Nobody likes him.
He seems to me frightened of the rightwing media and of Reform and twitchily reactive.
You don’t defeat the enemy by becoming them.
I think it might be the flip flopping, and not really knowing what direction he needs to take the country.
One minute it’s this, next it’s that. His dilly dallying with raynor when it was obvious her tenure was unsustainable. Then bringing in deeply unpopular policies like the OSA and digital id cards.
We have systems in place to counter illegal working. Why do we need the other id? We don’t. It’s a badly thought out rehash of what Blair was pushing in the naughties.
Then we have what most people perceive to be a two tier justice system, and you can start to see why he’s unpopular.
OSA was brought in by the tories. It’s full name is even the Online Safety Act 2023
He hasn’t rescinded it.
Like a lot of things. Such as the awful financial thresholds for migration that are nonsensical and xenophobic.
You know that, i know that. But from the publics perception the act came in while labour where in power. And that’s all that matters.
You could make a solid argument that it was done deliberately, to discredit the next government as the tories knew it wouldn’'t be them.
Labour could have turned round and said that the rules where brought in by the last government. But no, they then doubled down on it and started calling opponents of the act nonces.
So from the lay persons perspective, labour bought it in, and then called everyone a nonce.
As someone who lives in a country where there is one unique ID number issued to every existing citizen, newborn and every residing citizen, I really do feel the UK needs another ID. There are many people without a British passport (elderly or immigrants), the National Insurance number is only for people aged over 16 and does not contain a photo (and immigrants have to apply for it), and a drivers license is… well, for those that have passed a driving test.
So, have a new unique ID number for every individual born or residing in the country ties each of these bits of data together or works in place of someone who is missing one or all of those. In my country, you can use it to identify yourself at a hospital, or for doing your taxes, opening a bank account - or to log into many services. You even used to have to tell your ID number to a retailer when buying a TV so they could check to see if you had a license (but fortunately the government killed the license fee and bundled it in with our standard income tax).
And I have seen people people say “but what if the police ask me to present my digital card and my phone battery is dead?”. Here most institutions who have permission to look you up can still find you by your name and date of birth - since your unique ID number starts with DDMMYYYY followed by a five-digit number and they just ask you to verbally confirm they got the correct ‘you’ from their system.
That said, I haven’t read through the UK’s proposed plans for the ID card and I know historically the suggestion has been a little too invasive when it comes to adding “biometrics” to the card. All it would need to be is a unique ID number that links together all your other data thats scattered around the place… but clearly most Brits are dead against that.
They are happy to give their personal data away to Facebook and have it stored on servers around the world at the whim of Mark Zuckerberg, but not trust their government enough to store the same info on home soil to make the country run more efficiently.
With the likes of Palantir sniffing about in the lobbies, there’s good reason to be against it.
I can see that.
They don’t suggest to create an ID number, but rather a digital version of an ID card. There’s already an NI number that most government services are tied to. There are provisional driving licences that you can get without knowing how to drive.
It doesn’t seem that there’s a problem that this digital ID will solve.
The public didn’t ask for this. The senior civil servants who are the experts didn’t suggest or advise on it. This is coming straight from a politician’s think thank and vested interests, so of course no one is trusting it. It’s the track and trace app all over again.
I wouldn’t oppose a physical ID if they’d offer to print it and give to every citizen for free. But a mandatory app on your personal device is, as you said, a privacy nightmare.
He was funny in parliament when calling out boris
I think Starmer could be considered a reformer analogous to Stolypin, or perhaps Alexander II. In some ways, Starmer would have been considered a fairly radical social democrat able to appease the working classes, in another time. But now is not the time for moderate reformers who ultimately serve the existing ruling classes.
And the people who say to “Give Starmer a chance!” are the same who, in 1910, were bemoaning Alexander II and Stolypin’s assassinations because “We were just starting to get the reforms we’ve been asking for - and you radicals blew it for all of us!”
The time for reform is over. The people demand revolution.
I just want affordable housing, a reliable NHS and for my girlfriend to be let back into the country ಠ_ಠ