Unexpected Labour poll lead is because Johnson lost ground – Starmer is still rubbish
Keir Starmer: he was wrong and can’t admit it. The best he can do is quit but he’ll never willingly release the power he has, even if it is only power to attack his own party members.
The social media were full of this yesterday:
Labour takes the lead for the first time since January in our latest Westminster voting intention poll (8-9 Sep)
Con: 33% (-5 from 2-3 Sep)
Lab: 35% (+1)
Lib Dem: 10% (+2)
Green: 9% (-1)
SNP: 5% (n/c)
Reform UK: 5% (+2)https://t.co/LPKdjVUZp6 pic.twitter.com/YqdKEVfqPK— YouGov (@YouGov) September 10, 2021
That’s right. Keir Starmer’s Labour was said to be ahead of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives for the first time since January, and Starmer’s fan club was crowing about it.
But the figures don’t justify the celebration.
.@UKLabour 1-point lead.
But what’s sad?
It’s Tories themselves who are more effective at collapsing the Tory lead, not Starmer’s Labour.
& Tories’ll be the ones who get rid of @BorisJohnson when they’ve had enough.
Where do you think the hard-right will end up? Voting Tory!
— James Foster (@JamesEFoster) September 10, 2021
A pithy analysis from James Foster, there. Here’s some more detail – and I’ll pick out the most important elements:
2/ 35% is on the high end of #Labour's polling range under #Starmer this past year but it does not represent a significant uptick in support from what we've come to expect. The really interesting figure is that the Tories are on 33%…
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
4/ … and this is possibly the first time they have dropped below the high 30s. Essentially, the Tories have spent the past year chipping away at their own support base through mismanaging #COVID19, corruption and now the NI rise. Yet #Labour has barely benefitted…
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
6/ At this point its worth remembering that all polling is relative. When the Tories were up near 50% in May, it wasn't necessarily a sign of their huge popularity but their popularity relative to the available alternatives…
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
“Labour hasn’t crept into the lead, the Tories have snuck in behind them.”
8/ … and this is because the Tory narrative has never been seriously contested and there has been no functioning opposition. A lot of people have questioned why the Tories could remain so popular despite so many cock ups…
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
“Labour’s popularity hasn’t grown in any real sense.
“The Tory polling lead was softer than it appeared and this is because the Tory narrative has never been seriously contested and there has been no functioning opposition.”
And there is still no functioning opposition, is what they’re saying here.
10/ The combined vote share of the two main parties is now 68%. So while #Labour is comparatively more popular relative to the Tories, the main parties are together less popular than they were against all the other available alternatives…
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
“Perhaps [the Tories] never were that popular… just… preferable to Starmer’s godawful leadership.
“Starmer has never presented an alternative for people to vote for.
“The two parties are [now] together less popular than they were against all the other available alternatives.”
12/ This isn't good for Labour. Despite a big collapse in Tory support the party has failed to break out of the polling range it has been in for ages now. The lower base of Labour support this year has been 29 – 30%. 35% is a comparative high for them…
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
“This isn’t good for Labour.”
14/ It's also just one poll and may be an outlier. However, judging on past performance, #Starmer's team will likely see it as a vindication of their present "strategy," even though it absolutely isn't.
— @TheCosmosUK (@TheCosmosUK1) September 10, 2021
“Starmer’s team will likely see it as a vindication of their present “strategy”, even though it absolutely isn’t.”
And they did too. Fortunately, we have real people on the social media to bring the debate back down to Earth:
https://twitter.com/RedCollectiveUK/status/1436257309219594242
No reason for Labour to cue the darts music and declare victory here
They're only in the lead (within the margin of error) by virtue of standing still as nearly one in ten Tory voters switch to Reform UK and a fith to Don't Know – who share their name with Labour's care policy https://t.co/PLXmH1Uz6N
— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) September 9, 2021
Brutal comment about Labour’s care policy there.
Can't wait for him to get roasted by conference.
— Alhambra Norvell Hardie III (@Spudyulike) September 10, 2021
It wasn’t long until “slight media pressure” did turn Starmer into a “gibbering wreck” either – but we’ll discuss that below.
Here’s what people really think:
.@Keir_Starmer will go down in history as one of the worst @UKLabour leaders of all time.
— James Foster (@JamesEFoster) September 9, 2021
And here’s a good reason. In fact, looking at Starmer’s performance failure in his interview with Beth Rigby, it will be good to compare what happened – and what was said about it – with what centrist mainstream media reporters said about Starmer after he was elected Labour leader.
The comparison shows up the centrist melts badly.
Exclusive: In Stoke today w @Keir_Starmer on a visit to a 6th form college
– Asked 6 times, he finally says he backs a “wealth tax” (details to be worked out) to pay for social care
– And why his conference speech is NOT make or break
On @skynews 5pm pic.twitter.com/TkxrQNZU4y— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) September 9, 2021
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
https://twitter.com/thistle8blower/status/1436277870888894465
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
Oh my God.
Probably THE worst interview I've seen a politician give. Truly.This is the tragic issue we have in Labour – Starmer is a man utterly devoid of policy or principle, destroying the party and offering zero opposition.
He is just a terrible, terrible leader. https://t.co/nMCqAbK79Y
— Damien Willey 🟢 🔴 (@KernowDamo) September 9, 2021
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
What’s going to happen at the next election when the media actually goes for him? He’s had an easy ride for 18 months and the public already don’t trust himpic.twitter.com/wbCoZYz18g
— Colin Monehen (@CMonehen) September 9, 2021
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
Suffering Christ …. !
Centrism? Fencetrism, more like ….
No principles, no morals, no ideas…#carcrashTV #StarmerOut https://t.co/pIYBRApPuV
— Phil Gould 🇵🇸🖕🥁 (@bongosaloon) September 9, 2021
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
U.K. is so screwed. Watching Keir Starmer mumble and deflect answering a question on wealth tax was cringeworthy. A simple yes or no would have sufficed. Yet he couldn’t do it and the public are supposed to believe Labour are the answer to Tories 🤯 no difference between them.
— Teri ☘️💙♿️ (@mettlesome_teri) September 10, 2021
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
This … the most puzzling aspect of the whole mess. But I guess the anti-Corbyn brigade within Labour gave every waking moment to his removal and simply had no time left for ideas or policies. https://t.co/3WZRnkh0ry
— Phil Gould 🇵🇸🖕🥁 (@bongosaloon) September 9, 2021
— j (@jrc1921) September 9, 2021
Had enough?
So has the British public – of Starmer and of his cult followers, both in the Labour party, the newspapers and television.
The issue that made Starmer choke in the Beth Rigby interview was reform of social care – causing deep confusion among Labour supporters who know that the party had devised a plan for a workable National Care Service along the same lines as the NHS.
Starmer could have – and should have – pushed it down Ms Rigby’s throat.
This is an incredible bit of work, put together by people who were serious about transforming social care. Any @UKLabour MP with integrity should be mining it for answers to the crisis we’re in right now, irrespective of what wing of the party they are on. https://t.co/5gxif4LQJb pic.twitter.com/dLaAvcaNy6
— Ben Sellers (@MrBenSellers) September 9, 2021
Andy Burnham knows the score:
https://twitter.com/liamyoung/status/1436259720814374931
So do former MPs like Thelma Walker. But This Writer made the problem clear to her:
Because Starmer opposes it. Let that sink in.
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) September 10, 2021
It’s true – look:
Starmer has come out against the idea of the National Care Service.
2019 manifesto, the most hope I've had in my lifetime, in the bin.
— Chris (still a socialist) (@Socialist_Chris) September 9, 2021
LOL. Why doesn’t he just cross the floor and join the Tories. https://t.co/vqiT2O0IiW
— James Foster (@JamesEFoster) September 9, 2021
Apparently he has now suggested some weak-ass idea about taxing landlords.
Meanwhile, the creeps with whom Starmer has surrounded himself in preference to honest, genuine socialist politicians (he’s busy smearing them as anti-Semites, remember) are lining up to line their pockets…
You read stuff like this and think it really could be game over for Labour. A collection of spivs and 80s has-beens no discernibly different to the Tories.
This is really worth a read. https://t.co/U85uCmon7i
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) September 9, 2021
… or they are accepting jobs from the Tories:
Staggering hypocrisy.
Labour MP who holds DWP to account defends government appointment
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) September 10, 2021
And Starmer is still attacking his own – although his latest unjust assault against Young Labour chair Jess Barnard has collapsed after she called in her lawyers.
Skwawkbox explains what happened:
On Friday, Labour sent an email to Young Labour chair Jess Barnard, warning her that she was under investigation for supposedly ‘hostile’ language – when Barnard had in fact been ‘challenging transphobia’. The party quickly wilted under legal threat from her legal representatives and ‘rescinded’ the letter with a grovelling apology, claiming it had been sent ‘in error’.
The letter had been sent to Ms Barnard, who has made no secret of the mental stress she has suffered because of a series of vicious character attacks on her and Young Labour with no hint of support for her from the party’s leadership, at 1am on Friday.
Friday was World Suicide Prevention Day.
This is the state of the Labour leadership now.
This is Labour under Starmer.
He is the reason Labour is not popular – and no amount of “fluffing” by his client journalists will ever make him or his cronies acceptable to the public.
He is as Brian Tweedale described him on Twitter:
“What makes Keir Starmer so disappointing, is that unlike his predecessor, who gave supporters hope, he seems hell-bent on crushing it.”
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Dear Lord it’s sickening to see the press, and the supposedly left-wing press fawn over Starmer as if he’s some kind of centrist new messiah. Positive proof that you cannot trust a word these shills and hack propagandists utter or write.
And if you look at ugov it’s a Tory thing ops putting stammer the spammer first makes a mockery of it but ugov voting him Infront that keep him in power they hope