Innumerable clichés come to mind when looking at Starmer’s response to local election results:

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

When you’re in a hole, stop digging!

The worst thing you can do when heading towards a cliff edge is to put your foot on the accelerator instead of the brake. It would be wiser to steer left but Starmer is convinced the right can’t be wrong and the laddie’s not for turning even when a u-turn would be the sensible thing to do.

There’s no room for a u-turn now even if Labour ditch Starmer and put someone else in the driver’s seat – I won’t even speculate who that might be. Starmer did nothing to win the last General Election, he waited for Conservatives to lose it, and he’s doing bugger all to win the next one. If people want Reform policies they’ll vote Reform and traditional Labour voters won’t return! Labour was never a socialist party, it had socialists in it but most have either been expelled or resigned in disgust at the direction the party has taken. Some of us challenge the right of anyone to call themselves a socialist while remaining a member of the Starmer’s “Labour” Party!

To fight back we need a broad coalition of left wing candidates to contest seats where Reform is strongest. I don’t advocate strategic voting, but candidates with little chance of success could get behind a single candidate. A People’s Preliminary has been trialed in Dorset, where a Tory incumbent’s career of two decades was abruptly terminated! It’s a model for the future elections that could lead to a government that supports Proportional Representation.

I think too many people are trusting to Jeremy Corbyn to start a new party, although he would only be expected to serve as a figurehead until a younger person can be chosen as leader. Why would he want to? It’s true that Labour won more votes under his leadership in 2017 and 2019 than they did in 2024, and Jeremy retained his seat in Islington North by a larger margin than Starmer kept his!

Jeremy is a few months younger than I am although he has a lot more vitality, we should take inspiration from his leadership and build a grassroots movement that includes unions and community organisations. I’m not confident that all unions are doing their best politically, I resigned from Unite Community partly because of Sharon Graham’s continued support of Starmer’s but also because she banned a pro-Corbyn movie from being shown on Unite premises!

I’m not currently a member of a union but encourage everyone to join one if they can, preferably not one affiliated to a party that is Labour in name only. I asked TUC to suggest a union I could join and they recommended Community, but I gave up because of difficulty entering my DoB – it took too long to scroll back a month at time for 75 years 🙄

I don’t have any answers and it’s not my job to provide them. My degree is in philosophy, which trained me to ask questions rather than answer them. You won’t get the right answer by asking the wrong question!

There are links below, chosen by WordPress, for further reading. I wrote the first two years ago after spending just enough time in hospital to read Chris Williamson’s book Ten Years Hard Labour, it contains a link for anyone who wants to order a copy. The second is my thoughts prior to last year’s general election, I was quite accurate.