Quote Originally Posted by DryCleaning View Post
Re: the 10 pledges. There iittle point in being a socialism idealist, you need to be a pragmatist too. Many socialist cannot reconcile this. It's all well and good wanting socialist policies but they are only relevant if you get elected. We've seen time and again the UK electorate doesn't want socialism

Starmer is a pragmatist social democrat and has amended his direction of travel because the world today is very different than in 2020.

Albert Einstein said insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. Foot and Corbyn led labour to their worst ever election results, whilst Blair is the only Labour politician to win an election in nearly 50 years. This tells you which policies win elections.

You can be part of driving some of the change you want, or you can ignore the reality on the ground and carry on with a tory government.
You seem to be agreeing with Claude's view of the 10 Pledges as 'nonsense', and that it was smart politics by Starmer to tell the party one thing - only 30 months ago - and then renege on every one of his promises. I disagree. It is just dishonest and unprincipled. It is perfectly possible to be pragmatic and principled at the same time.

The 10 Pledges were not some radical socialist programme that would lead to failure at the ballot box. They were all about social democratic mainstream policies, uniting the party, and (as he elaborated on his pitch) using the 2017 election manifesto as the starting point for a Labour programme for government.

The 2017 manifesto was popular. Its individual policy offers scored well in opinion polls and focus groups. When 'blind tested' most people backed them. Corbyn failed in 2017 (Labour 40% to Tories 43%) but secured the highest Labour GE vote in 51 years. Instead of building on that Starmer has taken Labour back to the worst of Blair - without the charisma, the energy or the worked through policies.