Bensham33 wrote: 02 May 2022, 23:02
I think he's somewhere in the middle. I don't know what shade of red that is. As for the rest if it I don't really understand where you are coming from. What do you mean he's not even grey, that doesn't make sense. He's the leader of the Opposition who's job is to hold the government to account and he's doing a good job of You've been told before, if you want to know what that....if you want to know what Labour stand for look at their web site. If you want to know more about Starmer Google him..... I don't know what else to say perhaps your really clever and brainy and I'm thick and stupid and getting completely the wrong idea of what you are talking about but I think we have to wait for a General election to see what Labour really stand for we should wait to judge Sir Keir when and if he becomes Prime Minister.
Thank you for at least giving an opinion. More than the other Hindsight fans can be bothered to do, or even the man himself. I don't think you're thick at all but I wouldn't give you a job as an election strategist. The great mass of the electorate will not study Google or the Labour website. They need to be spoon fed with soundbites and a solid picture of what the people they're voting for stand for. It's no good waiting for Sir H to be elected to find our who he is. Or even the election campaign. Opinions are formed over a long time.
What I mean by grey is we don't know him. Like John Major. I don't know if you're old enough to remember his Spitting Image puppet. Shades of grey and only memorable quote was "more peas Norma." No doubt a nice man but not an election winner.
Election winners have a clear image. Love them or hate them Thatcher and Blair had clear images and won repeated elections. Even your hated Boris set out clearly what he stood for, Get Brexit Done, and trounced the opposition.
Even on the big issue still for some, Brexit, we haven't a clue where Sir H stands. Will he try to reverse it? Will he make it work better?
Being Not Boris is not enough. It's likely all the party leaders at the next election will not be Boris. It's not enough to hold the government to account. You have to offer a credible alternative. He doesn't.
I know why he's reluctant to define himself. If he's Corbynite he will alienate a large chunk of the electorate. If he's Blairite he will alienate a chunk.of his party and his union paymasters. Party funders expecting something in return? The Tories are amateurs in that field.
If he's somewhere in the middle as you put it, 5 on my Corbyn/Blair scale, he has half a chance. I reckon he needs to be at least a 7 to be more certain. We usually elect centrist governments these days. But he needs to have the balls to tell us sooner rather than later.
A final thought on his greyness verging on invisibility. Have I Got News For You on the BBC is usually anti whichever government is in power, so they've hammered Boris. Last week they had a picture of Sir H and Angela Rayner, on which one of the panelists commented "ah yes, that's the leader of the Labour Party and her deputy". Says it all.
