The article quoted him as saying he takes responsibility. If he’s not resigning, how is he taking responsibility? Just by acknowledging it?
Is resigning the only way a politician can take responsibility? I know it’s popular in UK history, but that seems kind of narrow.
There’s a difference between taking responsibility for the problem and taking responsibility for the solution. Him saying “I’m setting up a high level advisory committee and we’ll get to the bottom of what’s wrong and we’ll fix it. All at my direction.” would be nice.
Of course that amounts in advance to taking responsibility for the outcome or non-outcome of the proposed measures. Which sets up an even bigger failure later. So rather unlikely that any politician, but especially one in Starmer’s mold (mould?), would choose that route.
I reiterate a question I asked earlier. If Starmer is going to do nothing with his premiership, why did he bother trying to become PM?
Well I guess now we know what happens when you take conservative’s and “centrists” helpful advice and disavow trans rights. Although I guess from what I read they could have been worse on it. Still, it seems like this is a valid test case for what would happen if Democrats went this route.
That was my question. If he isn’t resigning and he is taking responsibility, what does that look like?
As an outsider looking in, I’m surprised at how vicious and nasty UK politics has become. Aside from the combative way the by-election campaigns were run, the statement from the Conservative Party leader is a shameful airing of grievances of the kind one might expect from Trump himself, except of course more coherent and with correct grammar.
Thanks for the clarification. Sorry to misunderstand.
Boris Johnson was a Right Wing Populist, like trump, who went in for the Big Lie- like all the lies about Brexit. And Fascist leaders start at RWP. The GB Conservative Party is leaning towards more Right wing populism. But altho Labor is laboring (heh) that map makes it look like it is the Reform and the Greens, not the fascist-wannabe Conservative party that is gaining. That is a good sign.
Where did trans rights get mentioned ?
Are you under the impression that Reform is not also a populist wannabe-fascist party? Because they are both of those things.
Hmm, I did not know that- they are even worse that the Conservative party, I was kinda aware they were pro brexit, in fact they were a Brexit party, but I didnt know how bad they were. But not so the Green party.
Completely in delululand!
It’s worth noting here that this does not mean that Labour voters have defected to Reform. When you look at the numbers, what happened is that Labour voters tended to vote Green this time while Conservatives moved to Reform, and the loss of votes to Green handicapped them against the growth of Reform.
Which is still bad news for Starmer, but the takeaway should be that traditional Labour voters are moving left, not right.
Hmm…maybe. The impression i get is that Labour moved right, and their base is abandoning them.
That would be a more accurate take, true.
Simplifying mightily …
The left in every country has always been a mix of the bolshy unionist sorts who’re not so educated but want a good deal for the salt of the earth like themselves. And the educated but not greedy sorta-professorial progressives looking for greatest good for greatest number.
The US has certainly seen the white working class abandon the unionism that brought their post-war parents and grandparents prosperity in favor of angry selfish cultural conservatism. While the justice/equality oriented faction, and some of the downtrodden minorities, is all that remains to support the US Democrats.
The UK now has the gift (poisoned chalice?) of four non-trivial parties. So both the traditional Right and the traditional Left can splinter into their more natural bedfellows: the selfish plus rich party, the selfish but poor / thoughtless party, the egalitarian but uneducated party, and the egalitarian plus educated party. Tory, Reform, Labour, and Green respectively.
And each will end up with seats in Parliament. Should be fun. Not!
Splintering is a possibility, but i think this is more of a transitionary state, with the lines as establishment vs anti establishment. Britain to me seems to have been broadly unhappy with the established parties leadership for a very, very long time. I can’t think of a prime minister in the last 25 years that most people look back on fondly. Eventually you run out of generational goodwill. It’s happened before - look at the Liberals - but what’s unusual now is that it’s happening to both establishment parties at the same time.
There are 5 non-trivial parties. The 3rd biggest is the Liberal Democrat Party.
Thanks for that. I simplified a little too mightily. 
Serious question: How do you in particular, and centrist through far-left Britons generally parse out the differences and similarities between LDP and Greens? IOW, who chooses which why?
I think I have a decent idea by Yankee standards of the long term trajectory of LDP’s ideas and electoral fortunes. UK’s Greens are sort of a Rorschach to me. I don’t have much confidence my picture resembles anyone else’s reality.
I continue to be fascinated by what news doesn’t get discussed in this thread. It was over a day after the local election results before I posted anything and I seriously wonder if anyone would have discussed the results had I not posted. It’s been over 10 hours since the leadership challenge against Keir started and nobody has bothered posting anything about it. As of now, over 70 MPs have called for him to resign:
I haven’t posted, but I’ve been following the news. He’ll be out within a week; we were talking tonight (and despairing) over who is likely to replace him.
I am usually an enthusiastic participant in British politics threads and I have definitely noticed that I am not engaging with this one, at a time when there is a lot of high stakes politics going on.
I am finding it very difficult to either find something to care about, or to be dispassionate. Keir Starmer is clearly the wrong man for the job, and has visibly been so since, at the latest, Sept 2024. He doesn’t have a clear idea of what he wants to achieve, he visibly doesn’t want to make decisions, his strategy for dealing with internal and external difficulties is just to tell whoever he’s speaking to what they want to hear, and his whole approach has led to drift and dysfunction within government. It is good that he will soon-ish cease to be PM.
But the alternatives are not inspiring. Streeting hasn’t exactly impressed as Health Secretary, Rayner is trapped by her tax affairs, Miliband doesn’t want it, Burnham doesn’t have a seat. Most likely, someone else is going to twig that this is their opportunity, but the main point is that if anyone had the qualities to be PM, they would be in a better position now. It is not exactly a surprise that the May elections were a disaster, we’ve seen this coming for at least six months. If it were done when 'tis done, then t’were well it were done quickly. So whoever does get it by definition can’t plan, organise or decide. And their chances therefore of coping with the large structural problems facing the UK right now are pretty minimal.
It’s depressing.
(That said, your 10 hour timing was largely overnight for the UK, which might also be a factor).