[Tubby Isaacs]

I would doubt that Starmer would fight Burnham, if Burnham became an MP. He'd easily get 80 MPs, and would romp home among the members.

If just Streeting runs, I want Starmer to win, and he probably would.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Streeting could have not mentioned leadership elections. Could have just set his position out, "as I am now free to do, after leaving the Cabinet" and all that.

[Oboogie]

This ^^^ Edit: That was in response to Abers post, I seem to be under some kind of time delay with my posts tonight.

If Starmer doesn't contest it, and Tubbs is right about Burnham, I'll vote for Streeting, but I don't have faith he'll prove any more popular than Starmer.

[Boiler]

I'm almost thinking of rejoining the Labour Party to vote for Starmer...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Been thinking about Streeting's record at Health. One area where he's got a fair bit of stick is in terms of childhood obesity strategy. There's been the restrictions on fast food advertising, but this has got a fair bit of criticism in terms of its loopholes. There are still McDonalds ads on TV, billboards etc. NESTA has been particularly critical.

We estimate that the current restrictions will affect 8% of food and drink advertising spend. This could fall to as little as 1% once likely shifts of spend into unregulated channels and advertising types are accounted for.

However, if the government were to close the loopholes which currently exist by including outdoor advertising, unhealthy brands and ranges, and less healthy products outside of the 13 food and drink categories included in the current policy, we estimate restrictions would affect up to 33% of total food and drink advertising spend.

You can perhaps see why business more widely doesn't want to lose 33% from a major advertiser, but they could surely go further than this. In fairness though, the McDonalds ad that keeps popping up on Sky Sports is not one that would appeal to children. I don't know what ads were like immediately before Streeting, but it's very far from the ones of my childhood with Ronald McDonald and Hamburglar. So it doesn't feel quite a laissez-faire as it sounds.

I'd hope James Murray could strengthen it. Similarly with the soft drinks sugar levy. It's brought quite a few more soft drinks into scope of the tax, and lowered the threshold slightly. But the effect isn't very big, and the most sugary drinks rate is still too low.

It's easy for people to say "just to this", and there's always a backlash with "nanny state" stuff. But Streeting's work looks like a bad combination of giving opponents a the nanny state talking point, while not making much difference, Doubtless he thinks the opposite, that he struck a clever balance.

Anyway, none of this changes the impression of Streeting as a young man in a hurry, who's gone after headline metrics too much.

[Abernathy]

I think it is far from certain that in a contested leadership election, Burnham would “romp home” amongst the membership. I have spoken to active members who were out on the doorsteps (and to a lesser extent experienced it myself), who say that the reaction to Keir Starmer from too many voters is absolutely viciously negative. On one level, as this appears to be widespread up and down the country, I can see how this may have led some to conclude that the party urgently needs to change its leadership. On the other hand, there are also many members (of which I’m one) who take the view that Starmer is not even two years into a massive majority for a 5 year mandate, that there are 3 years before the next general election, and that switching leaders now would be, given the geo-political situation with which Starmer is dealing superbly, well, hasty and very unwise - and not certain to improve matters. There is still a considerable measure of loyalty there for Starmer.

[Boiler]

The World This Weekend was following up on the article on the BBC website I linked to earlier and they dug up Heseltine - who seems to think the country needs a Thatcher 2.0 government to get it going again.

To which I say:

[Oboogie]

I think it is far from certain that in a contested leadership election, Burnham would “romp home” amongst the membership. I have spoken to active members who were out on the doorsteps (and to a lesser extent experienced it myself), who say that the reaction to Keir Starmer from too many voters is absolutely viciously negative. On one level, as this appears to be widespread up and down the country, I can see how this may have led some to conclude that the party urgently needs to change its leadership. On the other hand, there are also many members (of which I’m one) who take the view that Starmer is not even two years into a massive majority for a 5 year mandate, that there are 3 years before the next general election, and that switching leaders now would be, given the geo-political situation with which Starmer is dealing superbly, well, hasty and very unwise - and not certain to improve matters. There is still a considerable measure of loyalty there for Starmer.

Agreed, two years isn't enough time for the benefits of the changes Starmer's brought in to be felt, by 2028/9 he'll be looked on a lot more positively. Of course the lead time wouldn't be such a problem if he had anyone on the team with the slightest grasp of marketing, his strategy of hoping the media will report all the good stuff is utter bollocks.