Why does everyone hate Keir Starmer?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular as Prime Minister?
Today, why does everyone hate Keir Starmer so much? In these highly polarised times, dunking on the Prime Minister, this particular Prime Minister, is the one thing that seems to unite people in fury, disappointment, loathing. And so, as he rolled his sleeves up to address the nation on Monday morning, the weekend after one of the worst election results in Labour's history, Starmer had quite the job on his hands. The Guardian's Aditya Chakraborty wasn't the only one watching and wincing.
You know what, Nishim? You get these speeches and they are make or break and everyone's meant to be watching them and the fate of the man who runs a country rests upon what he's going to say in half an hour and actually no speech can withstand that amount of pressure. If after six odd years of Keir Starmer's lead of Labour Party and Prime Minister, you don't know what a Keir Starmer speech sounds like, I feel some degree of envy for you. But, no, it's Keir Starmer, right?
The Prime Minister and the leader of our party, Keir Starmer.
What factors contributed to Labour's poor election results?
APPLAUSE
So he says a bunch of things which he probably means, but to most people, I think they sound fairly platitudinous.
We lost some brilliant Labour representatives. That hurts. I get it. I feel it.
They're about the need for our children to have more hope in their future than we might feel right now for them. They're about labour, making a change, and we made the big calls right, but we've done some things wrong.
I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will.
And in the meantime, saying I'm going to change, honest, this time I'm going to change, which, you know, there are times when I watch Keir Starmer promising he's going to change, saying, trust me, honestly, it's going to be different this time.
What do voters think about Keir Starmer on the doorstep?
Honestly, stick with me.
Stick with him. But at what cost to the Labour Party? From The Guardian, I'm Nosheen Iqbal. Today in Focus, how Starmer's leadership spelt the end for two-party politics. Aditya Chakraborty, welcome to Today in Focus.
Nosheen Iqbal, it's a pleasure.
Now, I am going to trust you to make sense of everything that's happened since those election results, not least Keir Starmer standing on Monday morning fighting for his right to stay on as prime minister. Editia, just how unpopular is he?
Machine, he's probably the most unpopular prime minister ever.
How has Keir Starmer's leadership impacted the two-party system?
I mean, the popularity, the favourability ratings of Keir Starmer are unbelievably low. He's beneath Liz Truss for some reason, although he's not done anything near as disastrous in office as she has done. He hasn't lied barefacedly to the public like Boris Johnson, yet he's seen as a lesser character than Boris Johnson. Yeah, he really is hugely unpopular. And the thing that came out of... last week's election results is that he's unpopular everywhere to everyone. He's unpopular to people who are leaning left. He's unpopular to people leaning right.
It's been such a fast fall from winning such a huge majority. Now, these elections were always going to be tough.
What are the main criticisms of Keir Starmer's political style?
Not sure anyone expected them to be this bad. Aditya, what were voters saying about him on the doorstep?
It depended on which doorstep you were on and where you were, right? If you were in London and I went out with the Greens in South London and what really struck me was the Green campaigners, the Green activists I was with, they were knocking on doors, but they weren't actually saying anything. It was the voters who were volunteering their opinions about what they thought. And there it was three things. Gaza, why is this government complicit in the bombing of children? Shabana McMood and immigration. London's obviously about half visible ethnic minority now. And so in South London, you were getting black and brown voters who were saying, I'm not voting for a party that's going to racially profile me out.
Why do reform voters feel betrayed by Starmer?
And that's a pretty big thing. It struck me that people were talking about her in particular. One of the key constituents of the Labour Party vote has been black and brown voters for the past 50 years.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:08
2
Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular as Prime Minister?
0:08–1:29
3
What factors contributed to Labour's poor election results?
1:29–2:23
4
What do voters think about Keir Starmer on the doorstep?
2:23–3:11
5
How has Keir Starmer's leadership impacted the two-party system?
3:11–3:50
6
What are the main criticisms of Keir Starmer's political style?
3:50–4:40
7
Why do reform voters feel betrayed by Starmer?
4:40–5:21
8
What should Labour do to regain voter trust?
5:21–26:10