Because you were neutered as a kitten!
FishFace
joined 1 month ago
I don't think it's surprising that Labour is being judged this way, but what I started this off by saying was that I don't think they'll really improve with a new leader. Two things are clearly true:
- Starmer & the government made mistakes
- Starmer & the government are phenomenally unpopular
But seeing them together and thinking, "we can have a more popular (and successful) government by changing the leader, and this is clearly true because of this combination" - which is the logic I saw - is wrong.
Maybe Starmer was the wrong pick for leader and we're seeing this now, and having a different one would have been better. But at this point it's too late unless there is clear evidence that Starmer himself is a massive problem, which their isn't. There's all these other explanations for his personal unpopularity that would apply to any other leader too. So replacing him might get rid of his propensity for mistakes, might get in someone a bit more left-wing than centrist, but it must be recognised that "a few fewer mistakes and a bit less centrist" is not a good reason to swap leader, given how bad that is in other ways. It's his unpopularity that is propping up this narrative.
Mmm, Iran isn't the only country fucked by the USA, but they are an outstanding example of one that, decades later, still scapegoats the USA for all sorts.
Yes, and it’s not because they hate America.
I don't think Russia/Russians hate America. I do think they hate Ukrainians. But this conversation didn't start about hatred; it started about "enemies".
Which of those refers to their geopolitical rivals as "great satan"?
But bringing in Russia is somewhat ironic here. Modern Russia has many fascist traits. Fascism is on the rise...
Uh, doesn't Iran's government obsess over Israel and the USA, and people at home who don't follow Sharia?
The article says the site was being operated for a long time, and remained operational for since time even after the alarm was raised
I haven't seen those polls. It just doesn't seem plausible to me that all these Reform voters - most of whom haven't yet voted for Reform, what with their popularity being low at the last election are so beguiled by Farage that they don't believe any Labour proposal on reducing immigration. Those that are so beguiled... presumably believed Farage's praise of the proposals.
Remember what has driven the increase in Reform's popularity - it's high levels of overall migration, conspicuity of small boat crossings, and conspicuity of asylum hotels. These things have all got worse, and Reform's popularity rose on the back of it. We're not talking about dyed-in-the-wool cult followers here, but people who believe (wrongly in my view) that immigration is a massive deal.
To back this up with real data, this Ipsos poll has 2024 Labour voters saying 64% to 4% (yes, four percent) that immigration is too high versus too low. (23% "about right", rest "don't know"). That's 64% of people who voted Labour at the last election primed to like this announcement and clearly not so enamoured of Farage that they don't trust Labour to implement it. Yeah, some of them may have been holding their noses to vote Labour for other reasons, but nose-holders exist in all camps, so I think this is strong reason to believe that the policy is likely overall to be very popular.
They could have called it Timey McTimeFace...
I would love a genuine answer to this question with a proper analysis of costs, subsidies and profit margins, but this article ain't it. I would guess - but don't know - that the difference is mainly because the fixed infrastructure of a rail network consists of far more stuff that needs to be built, paid for and maintained than does an airline.
Also the emissions figure ("double") is way off - a domestic flight is something like 250g of CO2(e) per kilometre (per passenger) whereas a train is about 35g. Source.
gutting trans peoples' rights
Are you referring to the supreme court case? It wasn't Starmer, and it didn't gut trans rights; it said that it was legal to designate a space for biological women. Maybe there's something I forgot about though. I don't think this is making him unpopular though, as Starmer's views on the issue are pretty mainstream.
pandering to reform bigots
Is very popular and cannot be an explanation for his unpopularity.
ID cards
A sensible policy but yes, everyone knows it's unpopular so this was an unforced error
Authoritarian bullying of pro-Palestinian activists and protestors
Palestine Action should never have been banned. But Yvette Cooper did that, and let me remind you of the past home secretaries, PMs and governments who gradually made the law on protest more and more repressive, who oversaw much worse anti-immigration pandering, who said more definitive things about trans issues, and so on and so on.
I'm not saying that Starmer would be some wonder-kid in other circumstances, I'm saying that his unpopularity is absurd and utterly disconnected from his actual performance.
Yes. And then someone pointed out that 6×9 = 42 in base 13. To which DNA replied, "I may be a sorry case, but I don't write jokes in base 13."
Infrequently (when I remember)