[psd1]

Disagree. My criticism of him - my ardour has cooled very much - is that he's as much of a political weasel as all the rest.

I think his calculus was bang-on to avoid taking a Brexit position. He probably captures the anti-Brexit vote by default, whereas Brexit support was strong in the labour heartlands (and he can not afford to antagonise that base - they flipped improbably blue just to support Brexit). By doing nothing, he's made Brexit an albatross that the tories must wear.

Everything I've seen from him suggests that he's a canny operator. He's been very anodyne in his economics, because the only thing he can achieve by setting out his stall is to alienate. The voters he's already got aren't going to vote harder.

His strategy is to be "not tory" and his tactics are to not prevent the tories from making blunder after blunder. I think this is absolutely the right strategy and tactics. By contrast, the Lib Dems have much more work to do.

[hermitcrab]

Being evasive about your policies, because you don't want to alienate anyone, seems a dubious strategy, at best.

[psd1]

Ah! I now see why you think he is bad at politics. I'm sorry to shatter your illusions.

In a better system, it would be. But this is UK politics. If you don't win outright, you lose. Therefore, for most of us, we don't vote _for_ our preferred candidate, we vote _against_ our enemy. I haven't had the luxury of voting Lib Dem for years - I'd just be throwing my vote away.

Starmer only needs to present himself as the end of the tories. That's what the country wants more than anything else. They would vote for a sack of potatoes if it looked like the best chance of rooting out the tories.

No matter how credible, sane, fully costed or appealing his policy may be, the Mail and the Sun will use it to sow FUD, and his vote will decrease. Fuck, you think our electorate votes on policy? No, my friend. They vote based on emotive rhetoric.

If he remains anodyne, his enemies can only clutch mist. The plebs can project their desires onto him. He presents very little attack surface to the media.

Contrast with Corbyn. Out of context, when offered his manifesto policies, the plebs liked them far better than tory policy - yet he failed to win. Why? Because he was wide open to attack. The media painted him as a crank. They drowned him in FUD. Swing voters voted against him because they thought he'd crash the economy or disband the army or something. They didn't read his manifesto - they read Littlejohn lying about his manifesto. They read clickbait published by motivated liars in their Facebook feeds.

For clarity, Corbyn would have been a poor PM, but hopefully you now see that leadership quality is immaterial to the electoral process. If not, look outside.

No; Starmer must at all costs avoid throwing away his victory. He must stay mum except for occasionally - not too often - giving a little shove when the Tory self-destruction looks like slowing down. Keep the focus on them and win by default.

[pydry]

Voting for fringe parties has more effect than people give it credit for - they can and do put pressure on the main parties even when they dont get a lot of votes. With UKIP it changed the whole country (not for the better obviously, but they did).

That said, I'd make an exception for Lib Dems purely because the party is full of awful people with no real principles who have and would turn on a dime for political advantage. It has been a vote in the bin for 24 years.

[tonyedgecombe]

I'll vote for the Lib Dems simply because that is the most likely way we can get proportional representation.

[seabass-labrax]

The Lib Dems had their chance though, in the 2010 coalition with the Tories. Lib Dems might indeed be the biggest party promoting proportional representation as a policy, but what is to say that they will be able to implement it even if they did form a government?

[tonyedgecombe]

It turned out David Cameron was willing to give them PR without a referendum but they didn't ask for it. I doubt they will make that mistake again.