Analysis comment

#LabourLeadershipElection2021 tops UK Twitter trend as members say why they want new leader

Still trending hours after ‘Twitterstorm’

A hashtag set up to invite Twitter users to say why they want a change of Labour leader spent Wednesday evening at or near the top of the social media platform’s UK trend charts as users shared and commented.

The topic quickly hit number eight in the UK, higher than the #PMQs hashtag for discussion of the day’s Prime Minister’s Questions:

And it triggered Twitter’s algorithms to group it with PMQs, as the two topics merged and users attacked Starmer’s false claims about his comments on the EU’s medicines agency:

The topic then appeared to hit second place in the chart, immediately after tweets about the late ‘Captain Tom’ – and still featured hours after the hashtag had begun:

Even a glance at the responses under the hashtag shows why members and supporters have run out of tolerance for the party’s ‘leader’:

And the wider public seems to feel similarly: Starmer’s polling ratings dropped by seven points last week compared to Boris Johnson’s, even though the number of coronavirus deaths for which Johnson is responsible has now gone well past 100,000, while the party’s popularity also fell.

Starmer’s response to the fall – inserting a union jack into every possible photo and video, appalling even some on his own front bench – is likely to have contributed to the success of the hashtag calling for him to be replaced, as is his decision to write a column for the right-wing Mail.

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29 comments

    1. Starmer is a betrayer supremo. Betraying is in his DNA. Yesterday he was dragged to give a written apology to liar Johnson. Starmer claims he “misheard”. I don’t believe Starmer. NOW – thanks to decent people dedicated to a better world … willing to suffer major personal sacrifices, Starmer has to answer URGENT questions.

      1️⃣ CONFESS – WHAT DID HE KNOW re SPY COPS❓
      2️⃣ Did Starmer PERVERT JUSTICE by overseeing the withholding of evidence❓
      3️⃣ Did he KNOWINGLY cause innocent people to suffer a gross miscarriage of justice❓

      I believe Starmer is a liar by commission and omission. I believe Starmer is a sinister tool willing to do the most unjust and wicked acts and omissions just to please one percent of the one percent. I believe Starmer is TOTALLY unfit for any public office. If in this country we are free to express reasonable beliefs, then those are a few of mine⛔️⛔️⛔️

      1. Whenever I get deeply involved in investigating weird politics the trail always leads to a new starting point. Money, power and children. There is much to be done but the obstacles are huge and unpleasant. We must do some spring cleaning, it’s almost too late. ☮️

    2. Yes indeedy, boromoor. Who , in the entire pathetic PLP ‘Socialist Campaign Group’ would be a believable and worthy candidate to take on the Trilateral Commissions creature Starmer ? Please don’t claim that old bullshitting ripper-off of his own mining union’s area funds, Ian Lavery, or the old posturer, Trickett, or ‘Mr Remain and 2nd Referendum’, John McDonnell, are candidates. Not a single one of the buggers is worth supporting ! apart from a few limited mouthings of dissent at the Starmer claque’s return to Tory Lite NuLabour, not a one of the supposed ‘socialist’ MPs have raised a finger against any of the tidal wave of expulsions and suspensions against the Left Membership. And Jeremy himself is more concerned with getting HIMSELF back in his beloved PLP, and buffing up his image as a ‘great liberal do-gooder’ via his pointless ‘Project for all things nice’ , to actually act as a rallying point for the Left – either inside the now totally recaptured for neoliberalism, NuLabour Party, or indeed outside it to form a new Left Party.

      The Labour PLP ‘Left’ will spend the next ten years keeping their collective heads down, and taking their big salaries, just as the PLP ‘Left’ did ever since ‘Bennism’ collapsed, and Militant were purged, in the mid 1980’s , right up to the totally unexpected ‘Corbyn Surge’ of 2015 ! NuLabour is finished forever as a potential Party of government , in line with all the old social democratic parties across Europe . NuLabour’s only future hope for a role in government is to be in a future coalition with the Tories as per the Christian Democrat/SPD coalition in Germany. A role the careerist crooks who compose most of the PLP would be perfectly happy with. The only hope for the ‘Left’ is outside Labour – but unfortunately the existing ‘Left’, both inside Labour , and outside, is hopelessly middle class, obsessed with dead-end identity politics (That opportunist fake Left tosser, Owen Jones, seriously thinks the ‘Trans issue’ is a major issue for future electoral success ! – and that pro EU fanatic, Clive Lewis, seriously thinks that hoary old illusion of the ‘progressive alliance ‘ is the way forward !) , still in love with the EU and unlimited freedom of movement, and totally distanced from the mainstream UK working class – indeed deeply contemptuous of it. So there is a long way to go to build a new Left Party with mass appeal, rather than a hopeless ‘Respect’ or ‘Left Unity’ , mark 604.

      I now stand back for our resident nutter to have a verbal abuse meltdown and accuse me of being a ‘fascist shill’, a ‘Tory troll’, etc, etc, or even a ‘Zionist’ for daring to try to actually analyse the bankruptcy of the current Labour Left .

      1. Jpenny never tires of trashing left-wing MPs, and has obviously felt the way he does about them for decades given what he says in his above post, so why don’t you do something constructive penny and form a new socialist party instead of forever moaning! And the same goes for the other posters on here who are always finding fault with the SCG. Put your money where your mouths are instead of spending hours and hours collectively on this site every week putting them down and criticising them. If you REALLY wanted to do something to try and change things and create a better society, then why just go on and on and on about left-wing MPs when you COULD be doing something positive and constructive. Doesn’t make sense of course or add up.

        If not one of them is worth supporting, then take action yourself. As for Jeremy Corbyn forming a new party – and as you know damn well jpenny – he would just be pilloried and vilified again from the outset as being an anti-semite and a ‘friend of terrorists’ etc and, as such, wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of winning a GE. And I doubt the SCG members are unaware of how Chris Williamson fared when he stood as an Independent in the 2019 general election! Yep, Chris got the massive total of 635 votes (1.35% of the vote)!

        Jpenny and Co are just having a laugh with readers of skwawkbox, and whilst on the one hand they castigate Jeremy for ‘throwing good socialist comrades under the bus’ (as they have done literally dozens and dozens of times during the past couple of years or so), when they knew damn well that he had no say as leader in the disciplinary process, and slated him for being ‘weak’ and ‘appeasing’ his enemies etc, they castigate SCG members for not supporting or defending him when he was being accused of anti-semitism or being called an anti-semite. Needless to say, if they HAD done so publicly, they would of course have been condemned and vilified and demonised by the MSM and the Jewish newspapers and the BoD et al as being anti-semites as well.

      2. Are there REALLY five people (at the time of posting) who are so damn immature and infantile as to give someone referring to Starmer as Easter Island head a Like, as The Toffee, so-called, does below! It’s just pathetic beyond words, and hard to believe that there ARE any JC supporters who would do so! If you’re for real, then GROW UP ffs!

        And why would anyone call the people tweeting why they want a new leader ‘twotters’! Jeeze Toffee-head, isn’t it time you grew up! How old are YOU? Ten years old you twot?!

  1. While these twotter activists are at it, perhaps they can push for trigger ballots in each and every seat occupied by a pro-stammerist MP?

    Easter Island head is just one of the many heads of the stammerism hydra. Cut that off at the risk of rayner, nandy and mizz balls types rearing their ugly heads in its place.

      1. Not so Joe, as electing Corbyn amply demonstrated.

      2. Your both right, forgive the slur
        Night of the Long Knives time
        Take out at least 10 of the highest profile Red Tories in one fell swoop, kick them out
        Instigate legal action for recovery of the £600,000
        Create legal wealth fund to cherry pick cases we will defend/pursue
        As for challenger, take opportunity to put up best women, bame member to become this countries first, make JC Chair of the Party
        Need Temporary hatchet man, horrible bastard to do dirty work then retire back to the pub and bookies
        No room for f7ck8ng about, address the Pantomime Dame conundrum, only way to clear out remaining Red Tories and those who pop up in the future, if its a nuclear option and used when required then normal democratic procedures won’t be affected
        So that this level of infiltration never happens again, time for an almighty socialist enema
        1 ) Next PM Dawn Butler
        2 ) Chair JC
        3) Horrible Bastard, that’s me

      3. Reply to Joe Robson
        I agree with John Thatcher unfortunately. I’d go even further. We could have one of them as the new leader.

      4. Reply to Doug
        Agree with most of what you say but not about our candidate being a BAME woman if I understand you rightly. If the best candidate is a BAME woman then well and good but if the best candidate turns out to be white man then also well and good Gender and race should play no part in selecting a Left candidate.
        I think we made a major mistake last time and selected Rebecca because she was a very able woman. However she was not in my opinion the best candidate we had and unfortunately her gender played a major part in her selection.
        I love your suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn is made Party chair and although I was deeply disappointed with Ian Lavery for not running last time I now realise that he probably wasn’t able to because the SCG had made a bad decision in relation to the gender of the candidate so I would back him to the hilt – also Sam Tarry or Jon Trickett if either were selected.
        I also think Rayner should be challenged too – before she gets the opportunity to fulfil her promise the the Labour Friends of Israel and expel 1000s and 1000s of us. But again our nomination should be made on merit not the gender or race of the candidate.

      5. Reply to Smartboy
        There’s one thing we can all agree on, when you get down to latest intake then we have a wealth of candidates, the future is bright
        Bame Woman, makes sense on a number of levels not least taking a quantum leap in this countries politics, it also helps deal with a number of problems with MSM and toilet papers, bringing into the open the racism and sexism that has been given oxygen by cheap and nasties race to the bottom
        Clear Red Water

      6. Reply to Doug
        I understand your point of view but disagree with it. Meaning no disrespect to Rebecca we supported her last time and as a result we got Starmer. We can’t risk this happening again. Also being Black and being female will not influence the MSM. They do not recognise any form of racism except antisemitism and are sexist through and through – ask Diane Abbott.

  2. I see what he’s doing, he can’t help it, it’s the way he was brought up (middle class manners). He is loathe to criticise Johnson during the pandemic because he fears the electorates wrath for ‘playing politics’. Meanwhile, you can safely lay half the number of excess deaths at the government’s door. Apart from government policy over schools, which Starmer agrees with, the NHS is an open goal waiting for someone to attack the Tory record, unfortunately Starmer isn’t that person.
    Between 2010 and 2020 more than 17,000 beds were cut from the original total of 144,455. Between 1987/88 and 2019/20, the total number of NHS hospital beds fell by 53 per cent – from 299,4000 to 141,000. Yet at the same time the population has grown from 47.3 million to 56 million.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/25/hospital-beds-at-record-low-in-england-as-nhs-struggles-with-demand
    On January 24th 98,000 had died in Britain compared to 52,087 in Germany, a country with 17 million more people than us. But Germany has nearly 5 times as many critical care beds per 100,000 people as us.
    Labour’s answer: Patriotism and Union Jack’s, particularly ironic as we’ll probably have to get a new flag when this is all over.

    1. If he really believed in Britain he’d be making speeches about how introducing the internal market has almost wrecked the NHS and he’d be promising to do away with it and all the excess admin and beauracracy. He’d be railing against the decade of austerity that’s seen Britain with the worst Covid death rate in the world due to poverty.

      1. And he’d be informing the public of the appalling state of Britain’s social care, Bevin made an excellent comment a few weeks ago which highlighted the miserable wages and conditions people suffer so that owners and shareholders can milk government funding. Outsourcing doesn’t work.

      2. Yes, surely he would be doing all those things- ‘an open goal’ as is often said.
        But he isn’t and we’re right to be suspicious. There’s far too much going on- in the BBC, the Lords, the NHS, universities – and the Labour Party is now in serious peril!

        Starmer showed his hand very early on, my worry is many of those other MPs who have so viciously turned upon their own troops, the Angela Raynors of the party. Any future internal debate is surely going to tear these ‘useful idiots’ to shreds.

  3. With the lack of any movement in the polls the loss of a lot of active members as well as TU cash the Labour Party is heading for disaster in May at the local elections.

    It’s long been recognised that people don’t vote for disunited parties and Starmer has failed to even begin to fulfil his pledge that he would unite Labour. In fact he has worsened the situation. Each day he seems to have developed a talent for pouring more petrol on to the fire. If that is his intention then its a policy that is going some way to cripple Labour in the polls. If he doesn’t mean to then he’s clearly a hopelessly incompetent politician.

    The man doesn’t even look or act as if he likes life at the very sharp end of politics and I doubt if this has gone unnoticed by large parts of the electorate. This latest flag thing simply makes him look even more ridiculous and uncomfortable as indeed it would. People won’t be patronised by it as they can see what a desperate an attempt it is to get the bloke some sort of a political presence.

    Lets face it he hasn’t exactly spent years being active in the Labour movement or in Parliament and he has had a very limited experience of the cut and thrust of real politics. He probably had little idea of what life in the PLP would be like when Miliband talked him in to joining up when he left the DPP.

    I’ll give him to just after the May elections until he has either had enough himself and jumps or he is pushed by his mates. If so it will result in some sort of change in the approach that the LP is currently taking as the seek election but I doubt that it will be a huge one.

  4. Starmer pretends to have forgotten that any genuine pride (in the UK) requires it to have been deserved, hopefully earned. Are we to pretend that Starmer is a man of integrity, that we are proud of his record as LOTO? So, how is this going to work?

  5. I have had it up to my back teeth with this entitled crooked establishment rats arse.what is the most important aspect of parliamentary life?.Well it seems extending leave of up to six months for ministers. Who have a baby!.So its not difficult to get all the parties involved working together to extend their own personal privalage.with bumper pay holidays and expenses that would make your eyes water.,and what will the commons be discussing soon?Maybe the upsurge in secatarian violence in Ulster,or child poverty,…unemployment,food charities,rough sleepers…..No its feathering their nests once again..ITs not just the knight it’s the whole stinking swamp culture that along with the House of parliament that needs tearing down..Surely it couldn’t get any worse?

  6. In Skwawk’s photo he looks like the RoadRunner just outsmarted him again.
    And it wasn’t even the RoadRunner – it was only Johnson ffs.
    The pantomime Tory just left the “forensic” Starmer in his dust. Dead in a ditch.
    How is it possible to be outwitted by the likes of Johnson – an incompetent the lowliest foreign office clerks call “Wanker?”

  7. Starmer did what he was paid to do destroy anything socialist in Labour and far too many members all lazily voted for him and his BS.

    FFS he tried to hide who was backing him and still is to some extent. He is just a stooge awaiting his reward for a job well done. The so-called socialists let this fool destroy Labour now they complain way too late!

    You had your chance and blew it now you have destroyed Labour the only thing left is to start again and not allow any right-wing influence in the party. Any games played instant dismissal no arguments. Only that way will you have a socialist party again…

  8. That picture Sir KeirRodney Starmer at the top of the page shows the eyes of a tired, cornered rat that hasn’t the energy, incentive or instinct to go for the jugular.

    This is probably the picture that future historians who are sympathetic to Starmer’s militant anti-socialism will use of Sir Keir Rodney to suggest he was an ordinary joe ‘moderate’ Labour member who became its leader solely to expel from Labour its dangerous anti-semitic racism.

    Remember, History is written by the Winners – and we have to make sure Sir Keir Rodney Starmer is remembered as the Lackey of Likudist multi-millionaires who prefer apartheid over human rights for occupied Palestinians and as an Enabler of neo-con, neo-liberal Billionaire class interests and as the leader who nearly made Labour irrelevant to the working class.

  9. Keir Starmer is “apolitical” whose every step is “calculated”. this was spot during the leadership campaign and is still relevant “aiming for the top job and playing the long game for decades”

    He does not have a Plan B -when his maths and reasoning goes awry.

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