01-02-2020, 09:23 AM
(01-02-2020, 12:10 AM)Little Bit Of The Begbie Wrote: That's a really strange criticism of him, Sarkozy. He was raised in a working class family (his dad was a craftsman and his mum was a nurse, and he went to a state funded school) and was named after Keir Hardie - he has Labour credentials ingrained in him. Criticising him for later going to Oxbridge is pretty bizarre, particularly given where many of those lost votes have gone in 2019 and how he got there (he went to Leeds Uni for his degree and did a post grad at Oxford). Don't think he uses his knighted title either. Quite weird to see those things being held up as a negative.
It's not a criticism from my point of view - I've got a lot of time for him and I've said on here for the past couple years that Labour should have shifted Corbyn and put Starmer in charge.
It's clear though that Labour have lost their traditional support base in the north - I don't think it's a stretch to think that a lot of these voters will look at Starmer, think 'ooh chuffin nora, another southern ponce in 't ivory tower who's never been to 't north' and not look much further into his background than that. For me Alan Johnson nailed it when he said they need a leader who people outside of the big cities will believe in; rightly or wrongly it might come down to basically needing someone with a regional accent.