Well I Didn’t Like Him Either

[Bobbisox1]

To say Kier Starmer will appeal to Blair voters , what? Will he lead us into another illegal war too ?

https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-the-most-popular-opposition-leader-since-tony-blair-study-finds-12005452

[ToraToraTora]

Well SKS may well appeal to Blairites, but to become only the 5th Labour leader ever to win an election he'll certainly have to impersonate St Tony by impersonating the Tories. Real Labour certainly can never win again, that boat sailed in 1974, the British public, beyond a few stalwarts who still think socialism can work, don't want that.

[Bobbisox1]

He opened the floodgates ( and the borders) back in 2004 so his barrister wife Cherie could represent asylum seekers , laughing all the way to the bank at the tax payers expense ,he convinced the world what he was doing in Iraq was legal, the man should be done for War Crimes but he’s slithered out of that one alright

[lady-janine]

Teflon Tony I think is a good name for him Bobbi. Agree so completely about the war crimes which are still resounding today. I doubt if we would have had so much extremism without his illegal actions. I know he had the right as pm to take us into war but any idiot could see what the result would be. Very evil man.

[drmorgans]

The Tories must be laughing all the way to the ballot box. How can they ever lose an election when one half of Labour hates the other side? Corbyn was seen by the public as an incompetent ideologue, while the left are trying to undermine Keir Starmer.

[ToraToraTora]

drmorgans; "The Tories must be laughing all the way to the ballot box." - yep it's a giggle all right!

[Gromit]

It doesn’t say Starmer will appeal to Blair voters.

Have you linked to the right article, or are you making stuff up ?

[iluvmargie]

And to think I helped vote him in! BIG mistake.

[Bobbisox1]

So did I ILM :0(

[Bobbisox1]

Pointless nit picking my link Gromit, it was said on Sky News just now and probably all day that Starmer will appeal to Blair voters, check it out

[jackthehat]

Brown
Harriet Harman (acting)
Milliband
Corbyn

SKS probably doesn't have to try too hard to be 'the most popular' amongst that motley crew....

[ichkeria]

??
The article just says Keir Starmer is the most popular opposition leader since Blair.
And doesn’t mention any wars illegal or otherwise.
No need for Tory voters to panic just yet :-)

[woofgang]

Its one of my few things that I am totally satisfied with in my life, that I never liked Tony Blair and never voted for him. I think KS will be garnering support at the moment simply because he isn't Boris and having to manage the pandemic....and lets remember this about that time too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Byrne#Leaked_staffing_requirements_memo

A colleague of mine was doing project work for the DoH at the time and for some reason she had to brief Liam Byrne about what she was doing. He only had three questions for her
Is there a photo op in this?
Does my constituency get a positive mention?
Why not?

[Bobbisox1]

Ich, people don’t forget and most will remember Teflon Tony’s illegal hunt for the WMD that never happened

[Gromit]

The Blair Phenomena was of its time and has largely been discredited by his record in office. So comparing Starmer v Blair is pretty facile.

For Starmer to one day be Prime Minister he needs to appeal not to Labour members, but the whole electorate, be they Heartlands Labour voters, dissatisfied Tories or straying Liberals. It would help his cause if he united his party first. Kinnock and Blair did that by expulsions of the Trotskists.

I have not seen much of Starmer in action so a bit early for me to assess him as Labour leader. I rarely watch PMQs. The one PMQs I did watch about a month ago, Starmer won by default - because Johnson was so bad. So it wasn’t possible to get his measure.

[ichkeria]

A hunt for WMD is never illegal btw. There is more nonsense talked about the Iraq war than almost any other event in recent history.
I opposed it but at the time most people supported it!
It was only when the controversy arose about alleged sexed up dodgy dossiers that things changed.
And then the middle chases who had supported Blair finally had the excuse to turn on him.
Anyway getting back to SKS, he is plainly more popular than the party (tho not by much) . At the start of the lockdown Labour trailed the Tories by 28 percentage points. Now it’s only 4.
It isn’t only previous Labour leaders who make SKS look good. The current incumbent at No 10 is helping him too.

[Bobbisox1]

And I agree with your last paragraph ich, and will say Boris’s handling of this pandemic is not a good one ( hence the poll) that said, he’s been met with an unprecedented virus, the likes we’ve not seen in our lifetime and the likes of knowing very little about it , add that to Brexit...and I feel sorry for the man

[dannyk13]

Gromit, were you refering to this PMQ's ?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1306604/pmqs-live-boris-johnson-keir-starmer-coronavirus-news-uk-politics-news

[Gromit]

The country voted Blair back in in 2005 despite the Iraq War. I doubt voters not will but put off voting for Starmer because of something his predecessor did 17 years ago.
Voters might have more recent failings in mind when they vote like 45,000 deaths, far more than our neighbours France, Germany, Scandinavia. Why our hospitals, nurses and carers had no PPE for weeks, why an app we have paid £millions for is still not working. Corona will be Johnson’s WMD.

[Mozz71]

Honestly? I think Boris is more likely to appeal to Blairites. Most of them were about as left wing as Tora is.

[dannyk13]

I think that if Starmer is to hold any chance of winning an election he will first have to get rid of Momentum.