Quote from: smelmoth on Today at 12:07:28 PMThat really is lazy analysis.
What has defined the 14 years of the Tories in government? How much of that overlaps with Starmer.
The Tories took us out of Europe. Would Starmer have done that?
The Tories have fixated on immigration. Has Starmer?
The Tories have dreamed up bullshit, red meat policies like Rwanda. Has Starmer? Will he back out of the Tory mess?
The Tories are obsessed with Culture Wars and "anti-woke". Has Starmer stoked those issues?
The Tories brought us austerity. As tight as the fiscal situation is, there is no prospect of Osborne era austerity.
The Tories have cosied up to Meloni, Orban etc. No indication or even prospect of Starmer doing likewise.
The big issue of our time is what the Tories are describing as "the green crap". Starmer is miles ahead of the Tories on this.
I don't think anyone even believes that there is a significant overlap between Labour and the Tories on these issues.
Is the Starmer-is-a-Tory trope really just a dissatisfaction with his stance on Gaza? Or is it the failure to recognise that whilst in "ming vase" mode Labour are highlighting the economic shitshow they will inherit and dampening down expectations of what they can achieve, and more importantly, how quickly?
Maybe it's easier not to think about these things and roll out the lazy analysis?
I know I posted some of this before, but Starmer is very much in step with tory style politics on a lot of issues.
He rowed back on his pledge to nationalise water, energy and rail.
He rowed back on a pledge to abolish tuition fees.
In November 2022, he announced his intention to end 'immigration dependency', a stance so right wing that he won the priase of Nigel Farage (he also complained that there are too many foreigners working in the NHS).
He pledged that he would "work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people". Since taking the party leadership, he banned Labour frontbenchers from attending picket lines and even sacked one of his MPs for standing alongside striking RMT workers.
He has efectively led a purge of as many lef wing/socialists as possible form his party.
He backs the torys on a cap on child benefits and on bedroom taxes.
He has a looong history of antagonism towards the trans community, and backs the tories on a range of trans exclusionary policies.
When the tories announced their intention to cut their spening on tackling climate change, Saarmer was quick out of the blocks to criticise them, and pledged Labour would spend £28bn on it. Within a few months, he slashed that figure to £4.7bn.
Labour pledged to support "whatever measures the government takes" on covid and later praised the Tory response to the crisis as "an amazing piece of work".
He has refused to support calls to rejoin the EU single market or customs union.
He has refused to overturn the two child benefit rule.
Nobody is suggesting that he is identical to the tories, nor worse than them, but the fact is that on a lot of issues you could barely slide a cigarette paper between them. He certainly is not the personification of the sort of centre-left, union supporting Labour party that most people traditionally would have had.