Luckily, we’re in a period of global calm where there’s absolutely no big events going on that might require decisive UK leadership. It would be a shame if this was happening during a time of multiple global conflicts and an acute climate crisis in the UK.
According to CNN what he actually said was that he’s remaining as PM until the Labour Party can hold a leadership convention, with the goal of having a new leader in place before Parliament resumes in September. Seems reasonable. Organizing a leadership convention takes time.
As I mentioned before, there was an informative story on this whole Makerfield by-election thing on the June 14 edition of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This by-election won the very popular Andy Burnham a seat in Parliament, therefore making him eligible to compete as a successor to Starmer, which he’s likely to win. The point that fascinated Oliver is that this otherwise insignificant little community might be single-handedly responsible for making Burnham the next Prime Minister.
For me the problem that underpinned everything was messaging. Kier’s government has had some modest successes but most people have no idea about them because Kier still relied on a traditional media reporting fairly. And meanwhile every right wing talking point lands, causing Kier to eventually pander with crap like “nation of strangers”.
Burnham has precisely 5 minutes before he’ll be depicted as the antichrist. Before every chat thread on the internet, on any topic, gets an obligatory “Better than kier starmer andy burnham!” He needs to be ready for the attacks, ready with a positive message of his own, and, frankly, not afraid to call out the BS of Farage, GB News et al.
He could have avoided having as one of the first big stories of his time hanging on to petty freebies.
He could have avoided the messy U-turns on the precise ways to cut welfare costs.
Those alone turned the mood of public opinion that expected some more positive change into one concluding “Same old same old”, and that tainted everything they put their hand to.
He’s determined to make ‘Basher’ Burnham work for it, it seems. Blair->Brown was a coronation, which shows the party is capable of changing leaders a lot more quickly than this.
Not a leadership convention, a leadership selection. The annual party conference will be in September, but that would be happening whether there was a leadership vacancy or not and the organisation is already underway. It’s nice, for given values of nice, if the selection of a leader coincides with the conference so the new broom gets to launch themselves on the public in a friendly and controlled environment with guaranteed media attention, but it’s hardly vital.
In any case, its looking like it won’t be much of a contest. The other major challenger, Wes Streeting, has announced that he backs Burnham and sees a place for his idea’s under Burnham’s leadership, so it looking more like we’ll have a coronation.
In which case, doing it quickly is the thing. We can’t keep Starmer hanging on as a zombie PM in office but not in power while Burnham does meaningless glad-handing of members who are being offered Hobson’s choice. If Burnham doesn’t want to be seen as continuity Starmer, he needs to clear the decks, make some big moves to show a change of direction and generally show he’s got a grip on the situtation. Not being in place till August/September is death to that.
Is Burnham actually ready? Has he decided yet what exactly policies he wants to pursue and exactly who he wants as Cabinet members? I very much doubt that he has. If I am correct it is better that Starmer hang on a a zombie than Burnham waste his honeymoon period making these decisions.
And the lesson Labour took away from it was “This is what works.”
Hence Starmer increasing restrictions on protests, throwing LGBTQ+ people under a series of buses, leaning into anti-immigration policies and rhetoric, and basically trying to appeal to a further-right demographic that would never in a million years support Labour (Democrats, are you paying attention?).
That he was far better than his immediate predecessors is meaningless, as that bar was so low you’d need a geologist and boring equipment to find it.
I hope that will stop. As you say, it won’t win those votes and is probably driving some people off the fence in the wrong way, by tacitly validating the policies of the fascists or making it so all choices look kinda similar.
There have been six prime ministers in the last ten years. And that was before Trump 47 made any PM look weak. So it might not be Starmer’s fault.
It’s almost as if something happened ten years ago that has completely destabilised Britain politically, economically and socially.
Oh, i agree.
Gee, ya think?
Brexit and Boris (trump lite).
The irony is that on his visit to Washington a few months ago, Starmer’s ingratiating and embarrassing sucking up to Trump just made me sick to watch. His reward was that a few weeks ago he was part of the long list of foreign leaders that Trump was insulting like a schoolyard bully.
He was largely praised for operation suck up by the media at the time though, just like when he hired Mandelson. 
…and sadly the media still hasn’t learned their lesson on this. I’m still seeing so many talking heads saying how “Burnham will need to keep on Trump’s good side”, and “we still need the US for defence”.
When the reality is, Trump is unreasonable and unpredictable, and you may as well show backbone as he respects it. And, our defence agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on at this point.