Lady Leaders (probably)
Cons: 4
Labour: 0

Yes that reflects poorly on Labour but also on mysogynists who disparaged potential female leaders for their looks and snobs who disparage them now for their class background.

Yvette Cooper has been such a shoo-in for so long now....

This is said to be why the left have such a hate-on for Badenoch. They don't like anyone but them 'speaking for minorities', which is a bit imperialist if you think about it, yet they've never permitted a woman leader, let alone a black woman leader. (And the Conservatives have had three female PMs by now -- admittedly with mixed, dubious or even disastrous results.) That is partly why Badenoch would be a difficult opponent for more-of-the-same Sir Keir, supposing she played her cards right. She has the advantage of being articulate and having a fairly clearly outlined personality, as against the blancmange in No.10, but she might wander off into Faragiste weirdness trying to outdo Reform, which probably wouldn't work.

What's actually happening is that the Tory Reform Group declines to back either candidate in case they go bonkers on the single issue of immigration, which is a matter of public concern but not the only one. Of the two, Jenrick appears worse since he advocates resiling from the European Convention on Human Rights (which we ourselves set up and wrote), whereas Badenoch doesn't at this point.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...es-party-right

It's quite likely in sgnificant part about refom/farage.

The obvious thing for the new leader to seriously consider is a deal with reform or even some form of merger. The less extreme group have to try to make that difficult.

Jenrick will need Reform, Badenoch won't. She's too charismatic and gets cut through in a way Jenrick never will. For example, she went viral in the US this week off the back of her Kuenssberg appearance.

The stupid person's idea of an intelligent person produces things like this, as if it offers a profound insight into modern day UK:

Alex Salmond has died. Sturgeon will be breathing a sigh of relief.

Sad to hear that, though I wasn't a fan. I suppose Alba will wither away without him. It was in its day an interesting counter to the Sturgeon cult, but then Sturgeon's gone anyway and I hope most of her clique will follow (which may be a naive view).

I despise him for what he done to the country but I suppose he at least tried to govern the country in a decent way, even if I didn't agree with it.He knew that to achieve his goal he had to bring along people who weren't natural nationalists and would be conivinced by competent government. Thankfully his successor was useless and divisive and was only concerned with keeping her base onside. I suppose we should thank her for killing the nationalist project.

He tried to govern the country in a decent way, you still dispise him?

And yet... it's his successor that was divisive???

I've lurked these threads for 10+ years and your unionism at any cost mindset is ludicrous. It's that bad that I still don't actually know what your politics are other than pro-union and SNP-bad.

Unionism at any cost? What does that even mean?

Yes, I despise Salmond for trying to break up the country and impoverish people because of his nationalist mindset. He governend the country with all the benefits that being within the UK brought.

I'm happy to discuss the advantages of remaining within the UK versus seperatsism? Are you up for it? I remember the last time I listed I posted many of the advantages on here you didn't dispute them but I'm happy to go over them again. And I will add, it will be incredibly rare to have a nationalist discuss and debate the issues rather than resorting to blood and soil nationalist so respect to you if you wish to go for it.

It means that you are actually thankful that the Scottish Government following Salmond were "useless". That has to be taken as you wanted them to fail, you wanted the quality of life of people living in Scotland to be lowered (it wasn't btw). Unionism at any cost.

There was a time where Scottish nationialism flirted with the violent path. Salmond get a lot of credit in my book for steering it down the peaceful political path and getting so close (irrespective of views on independence).

Just caught the edit, yeah go over them again. The one condition is the benefits cannot be contradicted by the rUK's decision to leave the EU. And the downsides cannot be things that HAVE ALL READY HAPPENED since the 2014 vote.

And you really just came out with "blood and soil nationalist"? I wonder why noone wants to debate issues with you, when you instantly label them a Nazi...

More from the likely next LOTO aka the stupid person's idea of an intelligent person:

We might learn more about his real character now he's gone, and it might not be entirely to his advantage, but he had certain political gifts of personality which advanced his cause. Happily he failed at the fence, because there is no indication that a separatist government outside the UK would have the talent pool or the political culture to make a half-decent job of it. If you thought Westminster was bad, Holyrood always says, 'Hold my beer.' Corrupt cronyism and over-entitlement do not augur success, and nationalism has always been a cloak for all kinds of bad things.

According to More in Common's poll, Labour and Conservative are now tied on 27% support, with Reform at 21. Starmer's approval rating has sunk from +11 in late July (so positive ratings are still possible) to -38 now. A plurality of 30% think it would have been better if the Conservatives had stayed in office, compared to 24% pro-Labour, 25% no difference and 21% don't-know.

https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/medi...ys-polling.pdf

At the moment Starmer is making Rishi Sunak look like Clement Attlee.

How long before he is genuinely in trouble? does he get 2 years?? Will the left of the party be as ruthless as the Tory right?

The left isnt big enough in the PLP

Itll be the centrists who cause the problems

I think keir will get a budget + 6 months after it because he won the election....

But yh its grim

The 'left of the party' barely exists anymore. It will be independents/etc who cause labour the problem in the same way ukip did to the tories.

if badenoch can attract back defecting tories and find some understanding with reform then it will get very interesting in a few years time