Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts.
I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
> to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast
Not to argue against the point you're making but these aren't good examples. Policing in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are fully devolved and operate independently of the government in Westminster.
True. The modern far right is both a social media and traditional media driven phenomenon, internationally, and I don't have great suggestions for dealing with it other than "maybe the government should boycott Twitter before they ban sixteen year olds from it".
Police has no choice but to arrest people who commit a serious criminal offence on purpose and very publicly. It would undermine their credibility and the rule of law not to arrest them.
This is orthogonal with how police should tackle the violence you mention.
Edit in response to @pjc50's replay below:
The signs are a serious criminal offence. Supporting a proscribed terror organisation is a serious criminal offence according to the law and arrest is unavoidable.
Edit 2: What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such...
The attack on Brieze Norton was a serious criminal offence. The signs are not, no matter how much people want to pretend they are to conflate the two issues.
The police always have a choice as to which crimes they investigate. This is why petty theft in London is almost totally ignored.
(and the underlying decision to proscribe Palestine action was, of course, taken by Keir Starmer. It is a significant part of why he is out now.)
(edit war: "the signs are a serious criminal offence" -- this is why the Americans will be laughing at us about freedom of speech when they wake up on this forum.)
I don't see corresponding arrests being deployed against Twitter posters who were supporting the riots in Belfast, including the firebombing of immigrant homes, for example. I guess that's because they're not an organisation with a name, which is the important thing, rather than the actual violence?
How can this be squared with the decisions to not prosecute burglars, drug dealers, rapists and armed gangs, however? They are all people who commit serious criminal offences on purpose in Britain today without facing arrest.
> What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such
This was literally a decision Starmer personally made, to put Palestine Action on the proscribed organization list. Without that the signs would not be an offence.
>>There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
Regardless of the rights and wrong policy wise: Starmer was not a people person. I was as big a remainer as you'd ever find, and even I have to admit Boris Johnson could work people. Starmer was so inept in his day to day handling of his fellow humans it's surreal.
My personal favourite (and not the only example, but my own final straw) was his response when a large chunk of his traditional electorate voted for a female Plumber 'who wanted to make work pay for working people' and build 'healthier communities' is worth watching as an example of how to make more people jump ship.
For better or worse I signed up for the Green Party on the spot when I read that.
He was possibly a good backroom manager and well intentioned, but for leadership... no.
Well the bigger issue is that none of the major parties in the UK have any kind of sensible list of priorities, that they can actually whip the MPs to stick to.
Well Starmer had a massive majority and could have got whatever was needed passed to sort out public finances, but his MPs rebelled (or he chickened out).
People forget that the government is still mostly the civil service. The thin veneer of politicians over the top doesn't change the operating constraints of the UK unless you can spend a long time on the matter and reshape things slowly. Which was what was happening until this mess.
The issue isn’t the Labour Party it’s the entire country. Brexit has been a disaster, energy costs are through the roof, housing is becoming more costly, and there’s been no real economic growth in a decade.
But no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it. They just want to grumble and say the current leader isn’t any good before moving onto the next one, rather than admitting they might need to actually accept some change in the country.
Most of the real power is in the budget, which is technically a bill, but I would 100% go for "change the voting system". Almost anything except D'Hondt is better than FPTP; for simplicity, we could just copy the Scottish Parliament's use of AMS.
I would also insert a trapdoor that future changes to the voting system would require the approval of >50% of eligible voters, including non-voters. Yes, I know Parliament cannot bind its successors and all that, but at least I can make it look bad to change it again.
Does this solve any of the immediate problems? No. Does it solve the dysfunctionality since 2008? I think so, especially given that polling these days looks like five parties getting 20% of the vote each. Labour themselves came to power on 38% of the vote.
Lots of the problems in the UK stem from a lack of strategic vision. More coalitions, infighting, compromises, etc aren't going to drive serious change home. Don't really care if it's Labour or Tory, tbh, just want national politics focus on bigger picture stuff and bulldoze through regs if it's a matter of strategic investment.
What would be nice for voting reform, is to add regional elections across the nation (replacing the old European ones). This would be a great layer of government to vote in coalitions, who deal with 'softer day to day areas of government' (care, benefits, roads, etc). Would be a great incubator for national talent, too. We should be able to see how future PMs deal with a region before trusting them with national affairs.
The grand coalition governments of the EU are not in any way better. They just result in bickering and gridlock because parties that hate each other get stuck in the same room.
This is your pet issue, completely based on the grass looking greener on the other side.
The gridlock is real whether it happens inside or outside the party. This is partly why we're here in the first place! Starmer is out because he couldn't do coalition management inside the Labour party.
Starmer being an ideologue is a pretty funny take. I think most people would say he failed because he's a technocrat with no descernible principles or ideas.
Rejoin the EU, single market, customs union, drop sterling and take the Euro. This would almost certainly start a civil war in the UK (I am not being dramatic) but its what is needed.
EEA like Norway would be both a significant improvement, and does not require Euro. I do think we have to get to the point where we can say that actually Schengen was good and we should have been part of it before we get economically overtaken by Poland.
There shouldn't be any temporary pain from bringing energy costs down or letting the economy grow (on a per-capita basis I suppose, politicians do tend to try and cheat with migration). It would be good for everyone, or at worst neutral with wildly rare exceptions who are worse off. Which does make it a bit of a mystery why the UK and a number of other Western polities put up such a determined struggle against the two.
People are desperate for change! It's just that due to a misinformation fuelled online (and traditional media!) environment, nobody can agree what that is.
Disagree. Every one of the issues you mentioned is a direct result of labour/tory uniparty ideology. Netzero, endless migrants, insane taxation and so on.
I'm opposed too but there's little recognizance of the poor position the UK is in. Under the current decline of Britain's economic foundations, having enough diesel and gas to keep the lights on and the lorries running depends on imports from the US, which could well be banned overnight if the president - any president - feels they need to crack the whip.
Opposing the Oval Office means shortages in the supermarkets, gas power stations turning off and a bond crash that makes the DWP lack the liquidity to service all of the monthly state pension payments, besides a great many other problems.
Locking up placard-wavers is stupid, but so is intentionally waving a placard with the name of a proscribed group, when just about any other message supporting the cause would be fine.
If you do a million pounds in criminal damage and attack a police officer with a sledgehammer, you can't just write it off as 'direct action', you deserve a tough jail sentence whatever the cause.
If the government is legitimately evil for proscribing a group they should be able to deal with their constituents calling them out for it. Materially hindering a genocide is by all currently accepted human standards a good thing.
Ah yes the lovely protesters who spat on me, called me a baby killer and pretended they were going to punch me when I got stuck in the middle of them and said "I don't have time for this - I need to get to my mother" while I was trying to get to my dying mother in hospital and walked right into them leaving a tube station.
Fuck 'em. Sympathy gone.
Also I vote on local policy. The Middle East is a big political distraction from what's actually going on here. 99.9% of us can do fuck all about the Middle East and I suspect 90% of the country couldn't give a flying fuck about it either. But you know the council spent time on a meeting so they have a gaza policy but can't collect the bins reliably.
Are middle-aged women too much of a protected class to be held responsible for their actions?
If I went to practically anywhere in the world and started publicly expressing support for groups which are actively attacking military facilities and key infrastructure, I'd be arrested.
Funny u/JumpCrisscross who was asking for sources has now deleted the post with the question.
> Since July last year, police have arrested at least 2,787 people across the UK for holding signs displaying statements such as “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries.
> "The law does not have an age limit", the head of the Metropolitan Police said after an 83-year-old retired priest was arrested for supporting a banned protest group.
And in the same above article there's an explanation about why this "violent terrorist group" has been banned:
> The move to ban the organisation was announced after two Voyager aircraft were sprayed with red paint at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 20 June. It caused about £7m of damage, police said.
I agree with you generally but the RAF are part of the state and not meaningfully "capital". If you attack the military then yes obviously you are going to get the book thrown at you. That does _not_ justify going after the people with signs.
"Corner, a former student at the University of Oxford, was also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm after he fractured Sgt Kate Evans' spine with a sledgehammer in the raid."
But again, let's be clear: that justifies the conviction of the person with the hammer. Not the people with signs.
Ugh, thank you - I was not aware of this. I agree with you - this should have got that person prosecuted. People with signs is perhaps a tad exaggerated.
They actually hacked holes in the things with a crowbar too. That didn't do as much damage as expected though.
And they videoed themselves doing it and published that.
And the aircraft weren't usable in the Israel-Palestine conflict but were in the Ukraine one. You have to wonder considering the Russian connections of the principal sponsor of Palestine Action: Fergie Chambers. Worth reading up on him.
Actions of a traitor or enemy saboteur. Lucky they didn't get shot.
Some of these protesters seem to think they're invincible these days because they support a popular cause (Palestine or climate, usually). They need to get a grip on what reasonable 'direct action' is. Obstructive protests are generally OK, Destructive protests aren't.
They did that on purpose, though: Palestine Action has been banned on the basis of being a "terror organisation", this means that supporting them is a criminal offence. Knowing that, they purposedly propested by holding signs saying that they supported Palestine Action... and therefore they were arrested as expected (and really the police has no choice in such cases not to undermine the rule of law).
Note what the Court of Appeal said when ruling that the ban on terror grounds was legal:
[It was] "a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism. It is not - as claimed - a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes, operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation which operates with secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy property and cause injury. " [1]
The suffragettes committed dozens of assaults and arsons and at least one deployment of an IED, which suggests bad faith in the interest of political orthodoxy by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr.
Oh agreed. If anyone cares that much travel back to whichever country they support and enlist. Also renounce your British citizenship at the same time.
Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg:
> I thought parliamentary elections in UK worked like in most of Europe: you vote for a party, not a candidate.
They are. It's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. Nobody votes directly for who will become PM, who is ultimately selected by the monarch as the person who can best command a majority of the House of Commons – normally the leader of the biggest party, of course, but not necessarily. Perpetuating this view is frustrating because it's not what the system is designed for, and I feel a common misconception among voters that they are "electing the PM".
With the increasing breaking of two-party politics, it would not surprise me if we see this precedent of the monarch choosing a PM who can command a majority tested in close outcomes in future GEs where no party gains an overall majority. I'll be particularly interested to see how the press describes such an outcome, if it occurs, especially if the result is that the party with the most votes doesn't go on to join such a coalition.
Nevertheless, it frustrates me when these changes are described as "undemocratic", as that's a common talking point perpetuated by a poor understanding of the constitutional basis of UK elections. If there is a desire that the PM should be directly elected, that would mean a substantial rewiring of the UK constitution more broadly.
Agree with your first sentence but he is described as being on the very left wing of the party and, if he becomes PM, it will be with the support of the left wing, not the blairites.
> he is described as being on the very left wing of the party
By whom, and why are they worth taking seriously? Some politicians these days say all kinds of deranged nonsense about their opponents, and very often paint them as "far left" regardless of actual position. It's not worth taking at face value if it comes from there.
Starmer was the UK version of Joe Biden. He was the right guy to get Labor back on track and sort out the financial disaster left by the Tories. But he couldn't build a convincing vision of the future.
But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't possibly decide the future of the country.
But perhaps the idea is to trigger a re-election because a "continue as usual" will be fatal for Labour and the country.
I'm not entirely certain of the electoral details, but the UK Labour party is neck-and-neck with the UK Conservatives for falling from being a top-2 party [0]. This type of decisive reform may be sufficient to keep them out of 3rd place, so it is worth a try. The voters could take to it.
Might as well just hand Farage the next general election at this rate. The last decade has been personality cult after personality cult. We had the start of stability and have thrown chaos in again. Just what the opposition want.
Trouble is we are bouncing back and forth between centrist politicians who are great at coalition management but systematically sweep problems under the rug [1] and can't connect with people and populist politicians who connect with people but can't govern and flood the zone with bullshit or improperly formulated issues.
One alternative is that we find politicians that can connect and can govern, the other alternative is wait a few decades for the situation that the Club of Rome warned you about to unfold and count on a less complex civilization to be easier to govern.
[1] one cynical take is that it is a primary function of political systems to keep problems off the agenda because the agenda is finite.
Just one more minister, I promise you, just one more and all politics will resolve. Come on, just one more and it will fix everything. Please just one more. One more minister and we can fix the whole problem.
> Here's a look at his 'Manchesterism' vision and economic model for Britain, which he describes as "business-friendly socialism"
I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction.
> He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies.
Ok, also seems reasonable.
> Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway).
> Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months.
Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.
Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts.
I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres...
Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.
> to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast
Not to argue against the point you're making but these aren't good examples. Policing in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are fully devolved and operate independently of the government in Westminster.
True. The modern far right is both a social media and traditional media driven phenomenon, internationally, and I don't have great suggestions for dealing with it other than "maybe the government should boycott Twitter before they ban sixteen year olds from it".
The old far right was also media driven with der sturmer.
And also ignoring that whole Rape Gang thing.
What were the Belfast arson and Edinburgh stabbing in response to?
The stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh? How many people were killed?
Police has no choice but to arrest people who commit a serious criminal offence on purpose and very publicly. It would undermine their credibility and the rule of law not to arrest them.
This is orthogonal with how police should tackle the violence you mention.
Edit in response to @pjc50's replay below:
The signs are a serious criminal offence. Supporting a proscribed terror organisation is a serious criminal offence according to the law and arrest is unavoidable.
Edit 2: What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such...
The attack on Brieze Norton was a serious criminal offence. The signs are not, no matter how much people want to pretend they are to conflate the two issues.
The police always have a choice as to which crimes they investigate. This is why petty theft in London is almost totally ignored.
(and the underlying decision to proscribe Palestine action was, of course, taken by Keir Starmer. It is a significant part of why he is out now.)
(edit war: "the signs are a serious criminal offence" -- this is why the Americans will be laughing at us about freedom of speech when they wake up on this forum.)
I don't see corresponding arrests being deployed against Twitter posters who were supporting the riots in Belfast, including the firebombing of immigrant homes, for example. I guess that's because they're not an organisation with a name, which is the important thing, rather than the actual violence?
How can this be squared with the decisions to not prosecute burglars, drug dealers, rapists and armed gangs, however? They are all people who commit serious criminal offences on purpose in Britain today without facing arrest.
> What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such
This was literally a decision Starmer personally made, to put Palestine Action on the proscribed organization list. Without that the signs would not be an offence.
>>There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
Yes, chiefly immigration policy.
Regardless of the rights and wrong policy wise: Starmer was not a people person. I was as big a remainer as you'd ever find, and even I have to admit Boris Johnson could work people. Starmer was so inept in his day to day handling of his fellow humans it's surreal.
My personal favourite (and not the only example, but my own final straw) was his response when a large chunk of his traditional electorate voted for a female Plumber 'who wanted to make work pay for working people' and build 'healthier communities' is worth watching as an example of how to make more people jump ship.
For better or worse I signed up for the Green Party on the spot when I read that.
He was possibly a good backroom manager and well intentioned, but for leadership... no.
I didn't see that response, was it as bad as when he told his base the door was open and they should leave?
His Home Secretary telling the voters to fuck off was another good one: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/04/21/shabana-mahm...
(note that the mirror image of this, the Gordon Brown being secretly taped talking about a bigoted woman, was considered career ending!)
I know you probably didn't mean it that way - but people with aphantasia are often very creative, and visionary despite.
Aphantasia doesn’t preclude having dreams or internal dialogue/thought.
Well that sure as hell does not describe starmer.
"not dreaming or having internal thoughts."
Internal thoughts or internal voice?
Well the bigger issue is that none of the major parties in the UK have any kind of sensible list of priorities, that they can actually whip the MPs to stick to.
So governance is, at best, semi random…
And he'll be just as powerless to solve any of the big problems as the last half a dozen PMs.
Well Starmer had a massive majority and could have got whatever was needed passed to sort out public finances, but his MPs rebelled (or he chickened out).
He was elected to ensure nothing corbyn worked for would succeed, and in that sense he was perfect.
People forget that the government is still mostly the civil service. The thin veneer of politicians over the top doesn't change the operating constraints of the UK unless you can spend a long time on the matter and reshape things slowly. Which was what was happening until this mess.
Now it's start again...
And were being dealt with quite well by Starmer, but that wasn't good enough somehow
A completely pointless exercise for all involved. Rearranging deck chairs of the titanic that is the labour party.
The issue isn’t the Labour Party it’s the entire country. Brexit has been a disaster, energy costs are through the roof, housing is becoming more costly, and there’s been no real economic growth in a decade.
But no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it. They just want to grumble and say the current leader isn’t any good before moving onto the next one, rather than admitting they might need to actually accept some change in the country.
> no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it
If you could get one bill through Parliament, what would it do?
Most of the real power is in the budget, which is technically a bill, but I would 100% go for "change the voting system". Almost anything except D'Hondt is better than FPTP; for simplicity, we could just copy the Scottish Parliament's use of AMS.
I would also insert a trapdoor that future changes to the voting system would require the approval of >50% of eligible voters, including non-voters. Yes, I know Parliament cannot bind its successors and all that, but at least I can make it look bad to change it again.
Does this solve any of the immediate problems? No. Does it solve the dysfunctionality since 2008? I think so, especially given that polling these days looks like five parties getting 20% of the vote each. Labour themselves came to power on 38% of the vote.
Lots of the problems in the UK stem from a lack of strategic vision. More coalitions, infighting, compromises, etc aren't going to drive serious change home. Don't really care if it's Labour or Tory, tbh, just want national politics focus on bigger picture stuff and bulldoze through regs if it's a matter of strategic investment.
What would be nice for voting reform, is to add regional elections across the nation (replacing the old European ones). This would be a great layer of government to vote in coalitions, who deal with 'softer day to day areas of government' (care, benefits, roads, etc). Would be a great incubator for national talent, too. We should be able to see how future PMs deal with a region before trusting them with national affairs.
The grand coalition governments of the EU are not in any way better. They just result in bickering and gridlock because parties that hate each other get stuck in the same room.
This is your pet issue, completely based on the grass looking greener on the other side.
The gridlock is real whether it happens inside or outside the party. This is partly why we're here in the first place! Starmer is out because he couldn't do coalition management inside the Labour party.
He is out because he is an insane ideologue that the vast majority of the country despises.
Starmer being an ideologue is a pretty funny take. I think most people would say he failed because he's a technocrat with no descernible principles or ideas.
> insane ideologue
Man doesn't have any ideas! Let alone insane ones. He's simply the dull thud of quiescent authoritarianism.
Honestly, go back to the Liz Truss plan. She tried to speed run implementation, but policy-wise it was all there.
Rejoin the EU, single market, customs union, drop sterling and take the Euro. This would almost certainly start a civil war in the UK (I am not being dramatic) but its what is needed.
Brexit was -8% GDP, according to Bank of England.
This wouldn't start a civil war. Many of the Brexit voters are already dead and most of the rest are retired.
Lovely comment thread. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the “democrats”…
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/2016-leave-majori...
Oh, no, we don't want you, keep your mess to yourself instead of making it EU's
Yea no will never happen.
Only way into the EU is way you described. Full on Schengen, EUR, no more special UK exceptions etc. Will never fly.
Michel Barnier (EU's Brexit negotiator and later PM of France) suggests otherwise.
Exclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/18/uk-could-ke...
EEA like Norway would be both a significant improvement, and does not require Euro. I do think we have to get to the point where we can say that actually Schengen was good and we should have been part of it before we get economically overtaken by Poland.
Repeal Town and Country Planning Act 1947
Disband the UK
There shouldn't be any temporary pain from bringing energy costs down or letting the economy grow (on a per-capita basis I suppose, politicians do tend to try and cheat with migration). It would be good for everyone, or at worst neutral with wildly rare exceptions who are worse off. Which does make it a bit of a mystery why the UK and a number of other Western polities put up such a determined struggle against the two.
People are desperate for change! It's just that due to a misinformation fuelled online (and traditional media!) environment, nobody can agree what that is.
Disagree. Every one of the issues you mentioned is a direct result of labour/tory uniparty ideology. Netzero, endless migrants, insane taxation and so on.
Just a symptom of late Capitalism. They are all like this one but with different flavor.
There is one thing that might be in his power: to stop censoring and arresting people protesting against genocide.
Edit: lol thanks HN for the usual downvote! :) I love this place!
I'm opposed too but there's little recognizance of the poor position the UK is in. Under the current decline of Britain's economic foundations, having enough diesel and gas to keep the lights on and the lorries running depends on imports from the US, which could well be banned overnight if the president - any president - feels they need to crack the whip.
Opposing the Oval Office means shortages in the supermarkets, gas power stations turning off and a bond crash that makes the DWP lack the liquidity to service all of the monthly state pension payments, besides a great many other problems.
Locking up placard-wavers is stupid, but so is intentionally waving a placard with the name of a proscribed group, when just about any other message supporting the cause would be fine.
If you do a million pounds in criminal damage and attack a police officer with a sledgehammer, you can't just write it off as 'direct action', you deserve a tough jail sentence whatever the cause.
> proscribed group
If the government is legitimately evil for proscribing a group they should be able to deal with their constituents calling them out for it. Materially hindering a genocide is by all currently accepted human standards a good thing.
Ah yes the lovely protesters who spat on me, called me a baby killer and pretended they were going to punch me when I got stuck in the middle of them and said "I don't have time for this - I need to get to my mother" while I was trying to get to my dying mother in hospital and walked right into them leaving a tube station.
Fuck 'em. Sympathy gone.
Also I vote on local policy. The Middle East is a big political distraction from what's actually going on here. 99.9% of us can do fuck all about the Middle East and I suspect 90% of the country couldn't give a flying fuck about it either. But you know the council spent time on a meeting so they have a gaza policy but can't collect the bins reliably.
You mean Palestine Action specifically, because the leadership of that group are violent terrorists.
It's weird how you people never notice that NOBODY else is "arrested"
Over 2,000 middle aged women have been arrested as terrorists on the basis of holding protest signs though, it's been widely reported.
Are middle-aged women too much of a protected class to be held responsible for their actions?
If I went to practically anywhere in the world and started publicly expressing support for groups which are actively attacking military facilities and key infrastructure, I'd be arrested.
Funny u/JumpCrisscross who was asking for sources has now deleted the post with the question.
> Since July last year, police have arrested at least 2,787 people across the UK for holding signs displaying statements such as “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/16/arrested-ret...
> An 83-year-old was arrested alongside 64 other people at a pro-Palestine protest in Liverpool city centre.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wg4e1nlrjo
> "The law does not have an age limit", the head of the Metropolitan Police said after an 83-year-old retired priest was arrested for supporting a banned protest group.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vrjkev802o
And in the same above article there's an explanation about why this "violent terrorist group" has been banned:
> The move to ban the organisation was announced after two Voyager aircraft were sprayed with red paint at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 20 June. It caused about £7m of damage, police said.
Their violence was against capital.
I agree with you generally but the RAF are part of the state and not meaningfully "capital". If you attack the military then yes obviously you are going to get the book thrown at you. That does _not_ justify going after the people with signs.
They painted the aircraft.
Not just that: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce950111xk7o
"Corner, a former student at the University of Oxford, was also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm after he fractured Sgt Kate Evans' spine with a sledgehammer in the raid."
But again, let's be clear: that justifies the conviction of the person with the hammer. Not the people with signs.
Ugh, thank you - I was not aware of this. I agree with you - this should have got that person prosecuted. People with signs is perhaps a tad exaggerated.
They actually hacked holes in the things with a crowbar too. That didn't do as much damage as expected though.
And they videoed themselves doing it and published that.
And the aircraft weren't usable in the Israel-Palestine conflict but were in the Ukraine one. You have to wonder considering the Russian connections of the principal sponsor of Palestine Action: Fergie Chambers. Worth reading up on him.
Vandalised military assets on a miltary site.
Actions of a traitor or enemy saboteur. Lucky they didn't get shot.
Some of these protesters seem to think they're invincible these days because they support a popular cause (Palestine or climate, usually). They need to get a grip on what reasonable 'direct action' is. Obstructive protests are generally OK, Destructive protests aren't.
They did that on purpose, though: Palestine Action has been banned on the basis of being a "terror organisation", this means that supporting them is a criminal offence. Knowing that, they purposedly propested by holding signs saying that they supported Palestine Action... and therefore they were arrested as expected (and really the police has no choice in such cases not to undermine the rule of law).
Note what the Court of Appeal said when ruling that the ban on terror grounds was legal:
[It was] "a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism. It is not - as claimed - a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes, operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation which operates with secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy property and cause injury. " [1]
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gy927jx88o
The suffragettes committed dozens of assaults and arsons and at least one deployment of an IED, which suggests bad faith in the interest of political orthodoxy by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr.
...or any topic really. More people on the right than the left are being jailed for hurty words.
Getting constantly distracted by foreign-policy items 90% of voters barely care about is how the UK wound up in this mess.
Oh agreed. If anyone cares that much travel back to whichever country they support and enlist. Also renounce your British citizenship at the same time.
Ridiculous and undemocratic.
Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...
Why undemocratic? I thought parliamentary elections in UK worked like in most of Europe: you vote for a party, not a candidate.
At least here, it already happened, to have the PM resigning and then someone else from the party to pick up the role and that’s legally sound.
You vote for a local candidate, who may belong to a party. The candidate can switch party, resign from the party, etc, and will still keep his seat.
Whoever can prove to the King he can 'command the confidence of the house' is given the title of Prime Minister, and is free to form a government.
Unfortunately the system has flaws, and a sizeable chunk of people treat it all as a Presidential vote by proxy.
> I thought parliamentary elections in UK worked like in most of Europe: you vote for a party, not a candidate.
They are. It's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. Nobody votes directly for who will become PM, who is ultimately selected by the monarch as the person who can best command a majority of the House of Commons – normally the leader of the biggest party, of course, but not necessarily. Perpetuating this view is frustrating because it's not what the system is designed for, and I feel a common misconception among voters that they are "electing the PM".
With the increasing breaking of two-party politics, it would not surprise me if we see this precedent of the monarch choosing a PM who can command a majority tested in close outcomes in future GEs where no party gains an overall majority. I'll be particularly interested to see how the press describes such an outcome, if it occurs, especially if the result is that the party with the most votes doesn't go on to join such a coalition.
Nevertheless, it frustrates me when these changes are described as "undemocratic", as that's a common talking point perpetuated by a poor understanding of the constitutional basis of UK elections. If there is a desire that the PM should be directly elected, that would mean a substantial rewiring of the UK constitution more broadly.
Agree with your first sentence but he is described as being on the very left wing of the party and, if he becomes PM, it will be with the support of the left wing, not the blairites.
Then we will have a hot-minute before they're utterly hating him and demanding he goes too
> he is described as being on the very left wing of the party
By whom, and why are they worth taking seriously? Some politicians these days say all kinds of deranged nonsense about their opponents, and very often paint them as "far left" regardless of actual position. It's not worth taking at face value if it comes from there.
I think this is getting ridiculous.
My proposal: Let's get rid of the position of PM altogether. Maybe then the musical chairs will stop.
Same problems, different face.
The power of having a parliamentary system. Combined with the power of 77,462 residents of Makerfield.
Love the UK - we can be brutal if MPs want a leader .
Starmer was the UK version of Joe Biden. He was the right guy to get Labor back on track and sort out the financial disaster left by the Tories. But he couldn't build a convincing vision of the future.
But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't possibly decide the future of the country.
But perhaps the idea is to trigger a re-election because a "continue as usual" will be fatal for Labour and the country.
Provided you do have more than one candidate for the job - Streeting already said nah...
Will he last longer than a cabbage?
I'm not entirely certain of the electoral details, but the UK Labour party is neck-and-neck with the UK Conservatives for falling from being a top-2 party [0]. This type of decisive reform may be sufficient to keep them out of 3rd place, so it is worth a try. The voters could take to it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...
The collapse of the ancient Conservative party to behind not one but two crank astroturf right-wing parties is something to behold.
No need to get used to him. Won't last long either.
Might as well just hand Farage the next general election at this rate. The last decade has been personality cult after personality cult. We had the start of stability and have thrown chaos in again. Just what the opposition want.
You mean Starmer has a personality?
God no. None at all. That's what we need though. No more bloody populist snakes!
Trouble is we are bouncing back and forth between centrist politicians who are great at coalition management but systematically sweep problems under the rug [1] and can't connect with people and populist politicians who connect with people but can't govern and flood the zone with bullshit or improperly formulated issues.
One alternative is that we find politicians that can connect and can govern, the other alternative is wait a few decades for the situation that the Club of Rome warned you about to unfold and count on a less complex civilization to be easier to govern.
[1] one cynical take is that it is a primary function of political systems to keep problems off the agenda because the agenda is finite.
Just one more minister, I promise you, just one more and all politics will resolve. Come on, just one more and it will fix everything. Please just one more. One more minister and we can fix the whole problem.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-more-lane-bro-one-more-la...
Out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Burnham down the house.
Why not like borrow lots of money and spend it all? That would be so cool!
Give the Manc a chance!
He's not a Manc, he's a Scouser originally.
[dead]
> Here's a look at his 'Manchesterism' vision and economic model for Britain, which he describes as "business-friendly socialism"
I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction.
> He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies.
Ok, also seems reasonable.
> Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway).
> Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months.
Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.