The prime minister said Labour must “bring hope to a divided country”.

Burnham said… “We are here to speak to the politics of hope and of positivity.”

Thoughts on his response? I think Burnham is the best chance of having a decent country following the next general election. I don’t think he’s a perfect person (nobody is) but I think he’s generally decent, and the polls show that Labour are the best-placed party to beat Reform.

  • br3dEnglish
    6·
    1 month ago

    I agree with everything you say about Burnham and yet… Why did it take him more than 3 seconds to issue a condemnation of masked thugs doing something obviously worse than what got some Just Stop Out protestors sent to prison? Why did we wait days for this?

    • ModCen@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      4·
      1 month ago

      I guess the reality is that a lot of people in this country have concerns about immigration. I don’t have the same views as many of those people, but they exist. So I guess Burnham is trying to take a line of “concerns about immigration are okay, and Labour are trying to reduce illegal immigration, but we don’t believe the tactics of recent protestors are a good thing”.

      Perhaps the polls are indicating that Labour needs to win over both of these types of voters in order to keep Reform out of number 10:

      • Voters with very few concerns about immigration who are worried about protestors in balaclavas blocking roads
      • Voters who do have concerns about immigration and slightly sympathise with anti-migrant protestors, but perhaps they don’t like Tories/Reform because they see those as parties for rich people (which they are)
      • phutatorius@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        a lot of people in this country have concerns about immigration

        Those concerns are inversely proportional with understanding the situation. Any policy that empowers the pig-ignorant is shite.

        • ModCen@feddit.ukOPEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          I’m not saying I agree with people who have “concerns about immigration”. I might agree with them on some very limited points, while disagreeing on many points.

          I’m just saying that Burnham and Labour need to have broad appeal among different kinds of British voters if they’re going to keep Reform out of number 10. So I guess that’s why Labour are trying to take a view of “yes we recognise concerns about high immigration, e.g. regarding pressure on public services, and we plan to deal with immigration in a fair and humane manner”.