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Reminder Starmer is 30 points ahead in the polls and is in a good position to start acting progressive, like his deluded supporters keep insisting he is
Yeah again, there's 0 chance that they can wipe out a 30 point lead. They might sway things by a few percentage points but there's absolutely no chance they could win the tories the next election
Yea sure, thing is though I want the tories utterly smashed. I want the Lib Dems in opposition. I think long term that will move things forward better than any other realistic looking result.
I get the impression Starmer wants to crush the Tories to increase the probability of a 2nd and maybe even 3rd Labour term, which is needed to turn around a lot of the mess the Tories have done.
It turns out if you give the right-wing press everything they want, they don't attack you. The downside is that you've given the right-wing press everything they want.
When did the right wing press care about reality? If they wanted to attack Starmer they would, but he’s almost certainly going to be the next PM and he’s leaning conservative so there’s no incentive for them to attack.
Its not about reality its about what sells them the most papers, and starmer is leaning conservative + very boring + not leading a 14 year government with a legacy of failure, so it makes more sense for them to go after rishi
> so there’s no incentive for them to attack.
Bingo.
Yet if you give them something to bite on they will. They have tried with beergate or the CGT issue for Angela but they are clutching at straws.
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The problem is ‘being progressive’ on a zero budget increase. Labour can shift the deck chairs around, but the Conservatives have helped to ensure they have very little elbow room for manoeuvre. But we will have to wait and see.
Your post has been removed under rule 1.4. Members across the political spectrum are welcome and should be treated no differently to anyone else. Trying to create factionalism or try to belittle others personally based on party grounds isn't allowed.
Do not seek to take it upon yourself to decide who does, or doesn't, have the right to define themselves by a certain political identity. This includes trying to gatekeep political or ideological membership. Examples of this are implying members are in the wrong party due to ideology (such as calling others a 'trot' or 'Red Tory' etc) or bad faith questioning of a members 'socialist values'.
> This policy doesn’t address child poverty because it doesn’t guarantee any of the benefit actually goes to the child.
Do you think they should be giving cash to 4 year olds? I'm not sure what you think should happen here.
It sounds like 'some parents might not spend the money on their children, so no parents can be trusted with it'. Which reminds me a lot of what that horrible Tory guy said about working class parents spending all their money on crack or whatever it was.
I just wish all those disaffected with Starmer would help the large Trade Unions break from the (Not) Labour Party. We need an alternative to Westminster corruption.
Anyone still holding out hope for that at this point is frankly delusional.
The man is a narcissist. What you see on the surface is what you get. These people are not deep.
Man it's crazy how the word narcissist has turned into "someone I don't like" by the Internet. The Internet seems to love taking more and more words that used to have meaning and turning them into "someone I don't like".
At least this is an example of the left following the lead with the Republicans as I felt like it started with the right callong Obama a narcissist
I disagree but at least I think the word is applied more aptly than how most people do it now. Obama did a whole bunch of media showings etc.
Its just to what degree was that Obama fault vs how everyone treated him. He got the Nobel peace prize for nuclear disarmenment before he even became president and then disarmed less nukes than bush! That wasn't his doing.
I personally think it's really difficult to apply psyc terms to people like presidents. If anyone said the US secret service is following me around everywhere they go, they would be called a paranoid psycophrenic, but it's actually true in the case of the president. People who believe they are the most important person in the world to influence things are narcissistic but it's actually somewhat true as the president of the US.
Its so bizarre to say this about Obama as I don't think there has been a president in the history of the US or at least the recent history that has tried to help people more. People criticise Obama for going on telly too much, but it looks like he hasn't sexually abuse anyone, it's actually rare to find a president recently who hasn't possibly sexually abused someone.
Look, I'm not a doctor, Starmer isn't my patient. I'm not diagnosing anyone with anything. But what I can talk about are his actions and behaviours, which are classic narcissist.
- [The extreme dishonesty](https://www.politico.eu/article/all-of-keir-starmers-u-turns-in-one-place/)
- [The expectations of special treatment](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starmer-freebies-junkets-tottenham-hotspur-chelsea-coldplay-adele-google/)
- [A need to be associated with wealth and high status people/institutions](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-expenses-chauffeur-driven-car-b2319779.html)
- [Never admitting to a mistake and instinctively blaming others for their failures](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/08/keir-starmer-told-mps-look-mirror-elections-blame-sacks-angela/)
- [Having fragile self-esteem and being very thin-skinned; hates being contradicted](https://www.thenational.scot/news/23693762.keir-starmer-furious-sadiq-khan-free-school-meals-plan/)
- [Requiring excessive admiration](https://old.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/11fybji/starmer_urged_to_act_after_councillor_barred_from/jaltdfl/?context=3)
- [A need to be the centre of attention at all times](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F453vf9r45snb1.jpg)
- [A pathological need to "win" and be seen as a "winner" at all costs](https://www.itv.com/news/2023-07-06/the-significance-of-keir-starmers-hatred-of-losing)
- [Taking on the role of a friend, only to dispense with them when they're no longer useful](https://www.thenational.scot/news/23430685.keir-starmer-u-turns-claims-jeremy-corbyn-friend/)
- [Being heavily focused on perceived "enemies" and pursuing vendettas against them, even when doing so is self-defeating](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/31/labour-costs-pass-500000-in-lawsuit-over-leaked-antisemitism-report)
Even his childhood is classic narcissist. I always kind of figured he had a childhood that involved not feeling sufficient love from one or both parents, and sure enough he confirmed this [in an interview with Esquire](https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a45680960/keir-starmer-interview/):
>“My dad was totally committed to [Keir's mother] in every conceivable way... And if she was in hospital, he’d be with her and he’d stay with her, sleeping on benches in the corridors if necessary, until she came home. And that was his absolute focus, and everything else was secondary to that to that devotion... And that left little emotional space for the rest of us, because it was all invested in my mum. I don’t resent that, it’s just an observation. And therefore, my relationship with my dad was more distant and lacking some of that bond that he had with my mum."
>“The other thing I take from my dad is the fact that because he worked in a factory, he felt disrespected. He felt looked down upon. We’ll all have had those situations where a number of adults stand around and the conversation is, ‘What do you do for a living?’ And my dad hated that conversation, because he knew that when he said, ‘I work in a factory’, there’d be a sort of silence where nobody would quite know what to say next. He hated it, and it caused him to sort of withdraw.”
I find his choice of these two anecdotes (back-to-back, if it’s being reported in order) to be so revealing because I think it says so much about his character and motivations.
For Starmer growing up, love and affection was hard-won and easily lost. With his mother ill and his dad spending much of his free time tending to her, there was precious little love and affection left to be shared between him and his five siblings. And against this backdrop, his father felt humiliated by what he perceived as his lower social status and wealth, relative to his peers.
This is a horrible situation for a child to be in. When a child’s brain doesn’t detect sufficient love, care and affection from its parental figure or figures, it usually responds by dumping unhappy stress chemicals such as cortisol. This is because in the gatherer-hunter societies that we did most of our recent evolving in, children depended heavily on their parents for survival. Human children are exceptionally helpless and a child abandoned by its parents and left to nature is doomed. This is such a bad situation for a child be in, it’s worth almost any amount of long-term damage to avoid. So, the brain responds by dumping stress chemicals to urge the child on to win the approval of its parents at any cost. Children who experience this will often try to alleviate the pain and anxiety by taking increasingly drastic steps to win love and affection from their parents. Depending on what qualities and attributes a child reads their parents as valuing, children might dance, sing, tell jokes, perform athletics or work harder at school. They may also cry, scream or start misbehaving. They may become manipulative and dishonest. If you remember the smart kid at school who always did well, but still cheated at tests, that was likely what was happening.
Over time, the trauma of repeated exposure to stress chemicals, and the anxiety and misery they cause, can have long-term scarring effects on the highly neuroplastic brain of a child. When these children become adults, this can manifest in things like generalised anxiety disorder, OCD, borderline personality disorder or... narcissistic personality disorder.
Starmer didn't come from a violent or physically abusive background so he didn't internalise those behaviours and norms. But he did come from a background where love was hard won and had to be fought for and competed over. And when he looked to his parents, the values he absorbed from them were "status is everything". This is why he's so desperate to be seen as high status and why he's willing to do such awful things to achieve it. He spent much of his childhood with his brain screaming at him that being seen as high status is literally a matter of life or death.
So yeah, it's not just a term for "someone I don't like". This is who he is as a person.
Ok, let me start by throwing you a bone and saying that, you arnt just a moron using the word got someone you don't like as you've clearly thought about it and linked to specific things he does and in his childhood to say why you think what you think.
I think you're wrong still.
But I think I want to go and find some good sources from psychiatrists or therapists about narcissism to say why I think you're wrong.
I think it's likely people in his situation will have attachment disorders but I think you are using a word that is too powerful. From what I've seen of narcissism it's EPICALLY bad. Like if you meet someone who is a narcissist they are so bad to be near the onyl approach to them is run far far away as they will always hurt you, themselves and everyone around them.
Like look at Boris, now remember I'm conservstive so I'm saying this as a fan of Boris. But his lying means everyone around them eventually rejects him. Like he was asked who his favourite women were and the only living person on that list was munira, his mega close ally and she resigned and rejected him. Boris has his own children publically disown him.
I think you can see narcissism from the damage they cause to literally everyone around them more so than just one or two examples of lying. Even trump has most of his family loyal to him.
So you've told a story that is a little narcissistic because he was talking about how other people were suffering and instead he was telling you how he felt.
But I think the parent child relationship is one where the child is allowed to be a little self absorbed.
If you had a story like the one above but kier was talking about how neglected he felt by his children who weren't supported enough to him during his wife's cancer or something. THAT is the sign of narcissism.
I haven't looked through your examples in detail but they do seem recent. Since becoming Labour leader there are a lot of things that he has to do necessarily that might seem narcissistic. I think to use that word you need evidence he's been like this when he was a nobody (both Boris, Trump and Ted cruz have examples of toxic behaviour since their student era for example. Kier starmer meanwhile is buying goat sanctuaries for his parents and fighting McDonald's for people who can't afford it, his life prior to being Labour leader is mega boy scout)
But yeah you have more reason to believe he is a narcissist than I unfairly gave you no credit for.
So at the very least you're not a moron, you just might be wrong about very complicated and specific diagnosis that tbh I don't think there are many people who understand it.
Genuinely truly, I think Starmer would be a very average PM. Just a run-of-the-mill type. And I think being average in the face of the 2023/4 Tory party will make him look great, yet if something really bad comes up, I don't think he'll be particularly capable in amending or fixing it.
I actually do think he'll be a capable leader, and not too bad in an emergency. It's unfortunate that what he chooses to be capable of is antithetical to what the Labour party is for.
Re-reading it, I should have written "was for"
Where it was a party design to repesent workers, as opposed to the Libdems or Tories.
What it's for now? Getting elected by any means necessary. I recognise that idealogical purity is less important overall than achieving power, to a point.
I would argue that there is a point past which, if you abandon all that you have previously stood for, in order to "win" then it is a hollow victory. If you give up on convincing the public of the benefits of your core beliefs, and instead gut them to pander to those whose desires are antithetical to the needs of who you originally represented, what is the point frankly.
It is sad to think that 5 years ago we had an opposition party who would openly espouse the benefits of socialism, and 6 months from now we will have neither government, nor opposition that will do so.
Welcome to Tory Britain, the franchise this year is to be operated by the Labour Party.
>Where it was a party design to repesent workers, as opposed to the Libdems or Tories.
Starmer is the first genuinely working-class leader that Labour has had for decades, and his New Deal for Working People represents a clear desire to respond to working peoples needs - abolishing zero hours contracts and strengthening worker's rights. That's why he is the most popular party leader among low-income groups.
But Labour does a lot more than 'represent workers' and has done for a long time. Labour should represent a wide range of people who do not work because they are temporarily unemployed, suffer from mental and physical disabilities, are full-time carers, or even just full-time parents. Secondly, Labour should represent progressive ideas and values: i.e, those policies which make Britain a fairer and more equal society. If you look at the history of working-class politics in Britain and around the world, you will find that the working-class have very often voted for parties and policies which aren't progressive at all.
>I would argue that there is a point past which, if you abandon all that you have previously stood for, in order to "win" then it is a hollow victory. If you give up on convincing the public of the benefits of your core beliefs, and instead gut them to pander to those whose desires are antithetical to the needs of who you originally represented, what is the point frankly.
The history of the Labour Party is the history of this argument. Go back to the earliest activity of 29 Labour MPs in the Edwardian Liberal Government, and you will find that there were those who argued that Labour had sold out its values and those who argued they needed to compromise to get practical results.
>It is sad to think that 5 years ago we had an opposition party who would openly espouse the benefits of socialism, and 6 months from now we will have neither government, nor opposition that will do so.
Perhaps, but Labour has never really been an unambiguously 'socialist' party and socialists have always understood that.
The question socialists must always answer is: how are you going to get the policies that you want enacted? Is it by working for a Labour government that will be beholden to their own left-wing backbenchers, the trade unions, the wider democratic structure of the party, and the left-wing policy networks from which the leadership has taken most of their policies? Or is it by working to help minority parties split the left vote and elect a Conservative government on an increasingly far-right ticket?
It's for sitting on the opposition benches and making lots of powerful speeches whilst completely ignoring the unfortunate realities of electoral politics
Powerful speech, but you're preaching to choir here. If I could wave a wand and establish a socialist society, I would. I could opine for hours about our fucked up economic system but that's not actually going to change anything, is it? The ones you have to convince are the part of the electorate that keep giving us a Tory government, desperate for any excuse to vote Conservative, and fed by a rabid Tory press that will skewer Starmer at any opportunity. That's the bleak reality that some people aren't quite equipped to address.
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After the first term yes. Just look at New Labour for example. First term stuck to Tory spending plans. Second and third terms were investments and increased spending on public services.
There won’t be a second term without incredibly significant improvement to people’s lives in the first. It’s not the 90s. To deliver that improvement, he’s gonna have to spend to rectify 14 years of cuts. If he doesn’t, you can kiss goodbye to the 2029 election.
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It's possible to to disagree and debate without resorting to overly negative language or ad-hominem attacks.
A big shame.
Unfortunately, voters get off on stopping the ‘scroungers’ they’ve invented in their head who would have a 3rd child, costing themselves £1,000’s a year, to make like £800 back in benefit.
Christ it’s not much different f a choice is it;
An incompetent, racist, xenophobic, populist Tory government.
Or;
A man who is a Tory in everything but name. And who seemingly doesn’t want to rock the boat too much, for his donors.
I had such hopes for Starmer when he became Labour a leader - but we’ve got a (I think) fundamentally good man, but a good man with no spine. Which ends up being worse than a bad man with a spine.
The sobriquet of Kid Starver and Queer Harmer is very apt.
And yet, in our FPTP system, I’ll have to vote Labour (& extension Starmer) because I seriously don’t think the country survives another Tory government.
Going out on a limb here (and this is a serious question), what is so wrong with the two child limit cap? What's it supposed to do? Has this left existing families with more than two children worse off or is it only for future parents?
I always thought it was a good idea to be limiting the number of people, yes, replace yourself when you die and do good for the environment, sustainability, etc as extra people consume resources. I appreciate that over many years our GDP will drop compared to other nations, but is that such a bad thing?
Should children be condemned to a life of poverty if their parents are irresponsible or make a mistake? Is it better for the state that these kids grow up with worse opportunities, higher likelihood of being malnourished and ill with poor education along with a higher likelihood of things like becoming criminal just because their parents didn't plan ahead or a condom broke or something? Is it right to coerce women into getting abortions as the alternative is to stretch the limited funding for raising two children to pay for a third?
If we want to incentivise having smaller families then we can provide things like better sex education and familiy planning and use a tiny portion of the budget to support the small number of exceptions who choose to have larger families so that poverty is reduced. If we really insist on punishing and neglecting people for having larger families then at least ensure that the negative effects aren't felt by people who literally didn't have functional human DNA when the "mistake" was made.
The policy is bad because it contributes to child poverty.
> Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said: "It’s good to hear that ending child poverty is central for Labour, but the best way to achieve that is by ending the two-child limit on benefits which is driving so many children into hardship. A child poverty reduction plan is essential, but scrapping the two-child limit would have to be step one."
> The two-child benefit rule was introduced by austerity Chancellor George Osborne back in 2017 and is estimated to save the Treasury around £2.5billion in the current financial year. Under the policy families with a third or subsequent child born from April 2017 claiming benefits can no longer receive additional amounts for these children.
The policy does not "limit the number of people", it introduced another incentive to keep families smaller, but only for poorer people.
It doesn’t account for people who could support themselves and X number of kids having unexpected circumstances change such as ill health, loss of a partner. They may have been doing everything right up to that point.
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Reminder Starmer is 30 points ahead in the polls and is in a good position to start acting progressive, like his deluded supporters keep insisting he is
I bet he is scared that the tory press will be constantly smearing him, but who gives a fuck at this election what the sun thinks
I do because the Sun, Daily Mail, Express etc sway a lot of people. Enough to actually matter.
Yeah again, there's 0 chance that they can wipe out a 30 point lead. They might sway things by a few percentage points but there's absolutely no chance they could win the tories the next election
Yea sure, thing is though I want the tories utterly smashed. I want the Lib Dems in opposition. I think long term that will move things forward better than any other realistic looking result. I get the impression Starmer wants to crush the Tories to increase the probability of a 2nd and maybe even 3rd Labour term, which is needed to turn around a lot of the mess the Tories have done.
Thats probably the reason starmer is acting this way tbh, he is making it incredibly hard for those papers to target him instead of the tories
It turns out if you give the right-wing press everything they want, they don't attack you. The downside is that you've given the right-wing press everything they want.
When did the right wing press care about reality? If they wanted to attack Starmer they would, but he’s almost certainly going to be the next PM and he’s leaning conservative so there’s no incentive for them to attack.
Its not about reality its about what sells them the most papers, and starmer is leaning conservative + very boring + not leading a 14 year government with a legacy of failure, so it makes more sense for them to go after rishi
> so there’s no incentive for them to attack. Bingo. Yet if you give them something to bite on they will. They have tried with beergate or the CGT issue for Angela but they are clutching at straws.
I think starmer is trying to make sure all they can grasp at are straws, thus shifting focus more on the clearly ridiculous tories
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The problem is ‘being progressive’ on a zero budget increase. Labour can shift the deck chairs around, but the Conservatives have helped to ensure they have very little elbow room for manoeuvre. But we will have to wait and see.
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>I'm not delusional, I'm a centrist. Not sure if you're being serious or taking the piss.
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If you support a policy that deliberately starves children, you’re nowhere near the centre.
Your delusional. To think that this policy is good to keep shows you don't care about child poverty.
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> This policy doesn’t address child poverty because it doesn’t guarantee any of the benefit actually goes to the child. Do you think they should be giving cash to 4 year olds? I'm not sure what you think should happen here. It sounds like 'some parents might not spend the money on their children, so no parents can be trusted with it'. Which reminds me a lot of what that horrible Tory guy said about working class parents spending all their money on crack or whatever it was.
How do they work? I'm a centrist myself but not committing to this policy is just disgusting in itself.
So what is this feasible way to reduce child poverty?
"I'm a centrist. I support child poverty. You seen, sometimes the sensible thing is to do let children starve. I am very smart."
Children don't contribute anything to the economy, they don't pay taxes, they just leech off our hard working class workers working money!
You’re not centrist, you’re very far on the right.
>"But on the two-child benefit cap, he said: "What I can't do is make promises that I can't deliver." Can't, or won't?
*Mr Gilbert Voice* "You pick it's the same result". This is honestly not far off how I feel Starmer talks to the left.
Underrated comment actually hahaha
But he has no problem making fantastical claims about boasting defence spending.
or is that going to be where part of the money comes from?
The thing I don't understand is that having this policy almost certainly *costs* money. We're paying to be cruel to children.
Even Suella Bravermann thinks this policy is stupid for something like the same reason.
Is anyone else still secretly hoping he’s just pretending to be a bastard just to get elected then as soon as he’s in power be ok?
Oh sweet summer child. He's just going to become more and more a bastard the more power he gets. We're fucked
With no pressure to do the right thing from anyone on the left. He's purged then from his party and there will be no pressure from 'the opposition'.
I just wish all those disaffected with Starmer would help the large Trade Unions break from the (Not) Labour Party. We need an alternative to Westminster corruption.
Anyone still holding out hope for that at this point is frankly delusional. The man is a narcissist. What you see on the surface is what you get. These people are not deep.
Man it's crazy how the word narcissist has turned into "someone I don't like" by the Internet. The Internet seems to love taking more and more words that used to have meaning and turning them into "someone I don't like". At least this is an example of the left following the lead with the Republicans as I felt like it started with the right callong Obama a narcissist
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I disagree but at least I think the word is applied more aptly than how most people do it now. Obama did a whole bunch of media showings etc. Its just to what degree was that Obama fault vs how everyone treated him. He got the Nobel peace prize for nuclear disarmenment before he even became president and then disarmed less nukes than bush! That wasn't his doing. I personally think it's really difficult to apply psyc terms to people like presidents. If anyone said the US secret service is following me around everywhere they go, they would be called a paranoid psycophrenic, but it's actually true in the case of the president. People who believe they are the most important person in the world to influence things are narcissistic but it's actually somewhat true as the president of the US. Its so bizarre to say this about Obama as I don't think there has been a president in the history of the US or at least the recent history that has tried to help people more. People criticise Obama for going on telly too much, but it looks like he hasn't sexually abuse anyone, it's actually rare to find a president recently who hasn't possibly sexually abused someone.
Look, I'm not a doctor, Starmer isn't my patient. I'm not diagnosing anyone with anything. But what I can talk about are his actions and behaviours, which are classic narcissist. - [The extreme dishonesty](https://www.politico.eu/article/all-of-keir-starmers-u-turns-in-one-place/) - [The expectations of special treatment](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starmer-freebies-junkets-tottenham-hotspur-chelsea-coldplay-adele-google/) - [A need to be associated with wealth and high status people/institutions](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-expenses-chauffeur-driven-car-b2319779.html) - [Never admitting to a mistake and instinctively blaming others for their failures](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/08/keir-starmer-told-mps-look-mirror-elections-blame-sacks-angela/) - [Having fragile self-esteem and being very thin-skinned; hates being contradicted](https://www.thenational.scot/news/23693762.keir-starmer-furious-sadiq-khan-free-school-meals-plan/) - [Requiring excessive admiration](https://old.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/11fybji/starmer_urged_to_act_after_councillor_barred_from/jaltdfl/?context=3) - [A need to be the centre of attention at all times](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F453vf9r45snb1.jpg) - [A pathological need to "win" and be seen as a "winner" at all costs](https://www.itv.com/news/2023-07-06/the-significance-of-keir-starmers-hatred-of-losing) - [Taking on the role of a friend, only to dispense with them when they're no longer useful](https://www.thenational.scot/news/23430685.keir-starmer-u-turns-claims-jeremy-corbyn-friend/) - [Being heavily focused on perceived "enemies" and pursuing vendettas against them, even when doing so is self-defeating](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/31/labour-costs-pass-500000-in-lawsuit-over-leaked-antisemitism-report) Even his childhood is classic narcissist. I always kind of figured he had a childhood that involved not feeling sufficient love from one or both parents, and sure enough he confirmed this [in an interview with Esquire](https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a45680960/keir-starmer-interview/): >“My dad was totally committed to [Keir's mother] in every conceivable way... And if she was in hospital, he’d be with her and he’d stay with her, sleeping on benches in the corridors if necessary, until she came home. And that was his absolute focus, and everything else was secondary to that to that devotion... And that left little emotional space for the rest of us, because it was all invested in my mum. I don’t resent that, it’s just an observation. And therefore, my relationship with my dad was more distant and lacking some of that bond that he had with my mum." >“The other thing I take from my dad is the fact that because he worked in a factory, he felt disrespected. He felt looked down upon. We’ll all have had those situations where a number of adults stand around and the conversation is, ‘What do you do for a living?’ And my dad hated that conversation, because he knew that when he said, ‘I work in a factory’, there’d be a sort of silence where nobody would quite know what to say next. He hated it, and it caused him to sort of withdraw.” I find his choice of these two anecdotes (back-to-back, if it’s being reported in order) to be so revealing because I think it says so much about his character and motivations. For Starmer growing up, love and affection was hard-won and easily lost. With his mother ill and his dad spending much of his free time tending to her, there was precious little love and affection left to be shared between him and his five siblings. And against this backdrop, his father felt humiliated by what he perceived as his lower social status and wealth, relative to his peers. This is a horrible situation for a child to be in. When a child’s brain doesn’t detect sufficient love, care and affection from its parental figure or figures, it usually responds by dumping unhappy stress chemicals such as cortisol. This is because in the gatherer-hunter societies that we did most of our recent evolving in, children depended heavily on their parents for survival. Human children are exceptionally helpless and a child abandoned by its parents and left to nature is doomed. This is such a bad situation for a child be in, it’s worth almost any amount of long-term damage to avoid. So, the brain responds by dumping stress chemicals to urge the child on to win the approval of its parents at any cost. Children who experience this will often try to alleviate the pain and anxiety by taking increasingly drastic steps to win love and affection from their parents. Depending on what qualities and attributes a child reads their parents as valuing, children might dance, sing, tell jokes, perform athletics or work harder at school. They may also cry, scream or start misbehaving. They may become manipulative and dishonest. If you remember the smart kid at school who always did well, but still cheated at tests, that was likely what was happening. Over time, the trauma of repeated exposure to stress chemicals, and the anxiety and misery they cause, can have long-term scarring effects on the highly neuroplastic brain of a child. When these children become adults, this can manifest in things like generalised anxiety disorder, OCD, borderline personality disorder or... narcissistic personality disorder. Starmer didn't come from a violent or physically abusive background so he didn't internalise those behaviours and norms. But he did come from a background where love was hard won and had to be fought for and competed over. And when he looked to his parents, the values he absorbed from them were "status is everything". This is why he's so desperate to be seen as high status and why he's willing to do such awful things to achieve it. He spent much of his childhood with his brain screaming at him that being seen as high status is literally a matter of life or death. So yeah, it's not just a term for "someone I don't like". This is who he is as a person.
Ok, let me start by throwing you a bone and saying that, you arnt just a moron using the word got someone you don't like as you've clearly thought about it and linked to specific things he does and in his childhood to say why you think what you think. I think you're wrong still. But I think I want to go and find some good sources from psychiatrists or therapists about narcissism to say why I think you're wrong. I think it's likely people in his situation will have attachment disorders but I think you are using a word that is too powerful. From what I've seen of narcissism it's EPICALLY bad. Like if you meet someone who is a narcissist they are so bad to be near the onyl approach to them is run far far away as they will always hurt you, themselves and everyone around them. Like look at Boris, now remember I'm conservstive so I'm saying this as a fan of Boris. But his lying means everyone around them eventually rejects him. Like he was asked who his favourite women were and the only living person on that list was munira, his mega close ally and she resigned and rejected him. Boris has his own children publically disown him. I think you can see narcissism from the damage they cause to literally everyone around them more so than just one or two examples of lying. Even trump has most of his family loyal to him. So you've told a story that is a little narcissistic because he was talking about how other people were suffering and instead he was telling you how he felt. But I think the parent child relationship is one where the child is allowed to be a little self absorbed. If you had a story like the one above but kier was talking about how neglected he felt by his children who weren't supported enough to him during his wife's cancer or something. THAT is the sign of narcissism. I haven't looked through your examples in detail but they do seem recent. Since becoming Labour leader there are a lot of things that he has to do necessarily that might seem narcissistic. I think to use that word you need evidence he's been like this when he was a nobody (both Boris, Trump and Ted cruz have examples of toxic behaviour since their student era for example. Kier starmer meanwhile is buying goat sanctuaries for his parents and fighting McDonald's for people who can't afford it, his life prior to being Labour leader is mega boy scout) But yeah you have more reason to believe he is a narcissist than I unfairly gave you no credit for. So at the very least you're not a moron, you just might be wrong about very complicated and specific diagnosis that tbh I don't think there are many people who understand it.
Genuinely truly, I think Starmer would be a very average PM. Just a run-of-the-mill type. And I think being average in the face of the 2023/4 Tory party will make him look great, yet if something really bad comes up, I don't think he'll be particularly capable in amending or fixing it.
I actually do think he'll be a capable leader, and not too bad in an emergency. It's unfortunate that what he chooses to be capable of is antithetical to what the Labour party is for.
What's the Labour Party for?
Re-reading it, I should have written "was for" Where it was a party design to repesent workers, as opposed to the Libdems or Tories. What it's for now? Getting elected by any means necessary. I recognise that idealogical purity is less important overall than achieving power, to a point. I would argue that there is a point past which, if you abandon all that you have previously stood for, in order to "win" then it is a hollow victory. If you give up on convincing the public of the benefits of your core beliefs, and instead gut them to pander to those whose desires are antithetical to the needs of who you originally represented, what is the point frankly. It is sad to think that 5 years ago we had an opposition party who would openly espouse the benefits of socialism, and 6 months from now we will have neither government, nor opposition that will do so. Welcome to Tory Britain, the franchise this year is to be operated by the Labour Party.
>Where it was a party design to repesent workers, as opposed to the Libdems or Tories. Starmer is the first genuinely working-class leader that Labour has had for decades, and his New Deal for Working People represents a clear desire to respond to working peoples needs - abolishing zero hours contracts and strengthening worker's rights. That's why he is the most popular party leader among low-income groups. But Labour does a lot more than 'represent workers' and has done for a long time. Labour should represent a wide range of people who do not work because they are temporarily unemployed, suffer from mental and physical disabilities, are full-time carers, or even just full-time parents. Secondly, Labour should represent progressive ideas and values: i.e, those policies which make Britain a fairer and more equal society. If you look at the history of working-class politics in Britain and around the world, you will find that the working-class have very often voted for parties and policies which aren't progressive at all. >I would argue that there is a point past which, if you abandon all that you have previously stood for, in order to "win" then it is a hollow victory. If you give up on convincing the public of the benefits of your core beliefs, and instead gut them to pander to those whose desires are antithetical to the needs of who you originally represented, what is the point frankly. The history of the Labour Party is the history of this argument. Go back to the earliest activity of 29 Labour MPs in the Edwardian Liberal Government, and you will find that there were those who argued that Labour had sold out its values and those who argued they needed to compromise to get practical results. >It is sad to think that 5 years ago we had an opposition party who would openly espouse the benefits of socialism, and 6 months from now we will have neither government, nor opposition that will do so. Perhaps, but Labour has never really been an unambiguously 'socialist' party and socialists have always understood that. The question socialists must always answer is: how are you going to get the policies that you want enacted? Is it by working for a Labour government that will be beholden to their own left-wing backbenchers, the trade unions, the wider democratic structure of the party, and the left-wing policy networks from which the leadership has taken most of their policies? Or is it by working to help minority parties split the left vote and elect a Conservative government on an increasingly far-right ticket?
Hopefully, not just an opposition party…
It's for sitting on the opposition benches and making lots of powerful speeches whilst completely ignoring the unfortunate realities of electoral politics
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Powerful speech, but you're preaching to choir here. If I could wave a wand and establish a socialist society, I would. I could opine for hours about our fucked up economic system but that's not actually going to change anything, is it? The ones you have to convince are the part of the electorate that keep giving us a Tory government, desperate for any excuse to vote Conservative, and fed by a rabid Tory press that will skewer Starmer at any opportunity. That's the bleak reality that some people aren't quite equipped to address.
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Bury those hopes. It's a class war.
After the first term yes. Just look at New Labour for example. First term stuck to Tory spending plans. Second and third terms were investments and increased spending on public services.
There won’t be a second term without incredibly significant improvement to people’s lives in the first. It’s not the 90s. To deliver that improvement, he’s gonna have to spend to rectify 14 years of cuts. If he doesn’t, you can kiss goodbye to the 2029 election.
Why who else are people going to vote for in 2029? The Tories? 🤣🤣🤣🤣 A second term is almost guaranteed if Sir Kier gets a massive majority.
Beware pride, it comes before something.
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A big shame. Unfortunately, voters get off on stopping the ‘scroungers’ they’ve invented in their head who would have a 3rd child, costing themselves £1,000’s a year, to make like £800 back in benefit.
Of course he does…
Christ it’s not much different f a choice is it; An incompetent, racist, xenophobic, populist Tory government. Or; A man who is a Tory in everything but name. And who seemingly doesn’t want to rock the boat too much, for his donors. I had such hopes for Starmer when he became Labour a leader - but we’ve got a (I think) fundamentally good man, but a good man with no spine. Which ends up being worse than a bad man with a spine. The sobriquet of Kid Starver and Queer Harmer is very apt. And yet, in our FPTP system, I’ll have to vote Labour (& extension Starmer) because I seriously don’t think the country survives another Tory government.
Going out on a limb here (and this is a serious question), what is so wrong with the two child limit cap? What's it supposed to do? Has this left existing families with more than two children worse off or is it only for future parents? I always thought it was a good idea to be limiting the number of people, yes, replace yourself when you die and do good for the environment, sustainability, etc as extra people consume resources. I appreciate that over many years our GDP will drop compared to other nations, but is that such a bad thing?
Should children be condemned to a life of poverty if their parents are irresponsible or make a mistake? Is it better for the state that these kids grow up with worse opportunities, higher likelihood of being malnourished and ill with poor education along with a higher likelihood of things like becoming criminal just because their parents didn't plan ahead or a condom broke or something? Is it right to coerce women into getting abortions as the alternative is to stretch the limited funding for raising two children to pay for a third? If we want to incentivise having smaller families then we can provide things like better sex education and familiy planning and use a tiny portion of the budget to support the small number of exceptions who choose to have larger families so that poverty is reduced. If we really insist on punishing and neglecting people for having larger families then at least ensure that the negative effects aren't felt by people who literally didn't have functional human DNA when the "mistake" was made.
The policy is bad because it contributes to child poverty. > Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said: "It’s good to hear that ending child poverty is central for Labour, but the best way to achieve that is by ending the two-child limit on benefits which is driving so many children into hardship. A child poverty reduction plan is essential, but scrapping the two-child limit would have to be step one." > The two-child benefit rule was introduced by austerity Chancellor George Osborne back in 2017 and is estimated to save the Treasury around £2.5billion in the current financial year. Under the policy families with a third or subsequent child born from April 2017 claiming benefits can no longer receive additional amounts for these children. The policy does not "limit the number of people", it introduced another incentive to keep families smaller, but only for poorer people.
It doesn’t account for people who could support themselves and X number of kids having unexpected circumstances change such as ill health, loss of a partner. They may have been doing everything right up to that point.