General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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I'm sure their solution will be to go more to the right. It is always is their answer. Which will keep harming them until a new Cameron comes round to try and detoxify them again.
If we had a better voting system, you wouldn't get these unstablely broad churches. We also have Parliaments always more reflective of voters wishes.
Yes, but if we had a fairer voting system then the Tories would murder premature babies and take soldier's armour away.
"We send £250 million per week to the EU, let's spend it on AV"
I think I've cracked it guys.
Clearly they know they're fucked if AV gets voted in... Went straight to using distressing imaging and quoting large sums of money.
I'm sure their solution will be to go more to the right
They’ve already started painting over Mickey Mouse murals in asylum centres.
less than 100 seats
Fewer.
Stannis, can it truly be you?
Unfortunately it’s only Alastair Campbell
Uhh... Isn't that what less than means?
No. In simple terms, you use 'fewer' for things you can count, and 'less' for things you can't. For example, the Tories could win fewer than 100 seats, which would mean they would have less political influence than before.
The key thing is whether you can count it or not. If you remember that simple rule, you will make fewer grammatical mistakes and you will be less wrong.
Interesting that we call the mathematical sign '<' a less than sign then. Maybe it has a more technical term than 'less than'.
I don't see it happening. England loves it's tories
yes it's frustrating they'll moan and moan but when it comes to voting they'll panic and vote for things to stay the same, although the government can only test the public so much
Oh no! Anyway...
This is wishful thinking if I've ever seen it.
But there won't be a general election until 2025. And a week is a long time in politics.
Do you really think they're going to try and hold an election in January 2025 at the last possible moment for a general election?
Traditional wisdom is that for the incumbent party, spring/summer is a better time to hold the election because people are generally happier with their lot in the warmer months, and are thus more likely to vote for the status quo. In January, everyone is broke after Christmas, and miserable from the cold, wet and dark, thus more likely to vote for a change of government. All the more so if energy prices continue to be sky-high.
Personally, I'd be surprised if it's more than a year until the election.
Old people don't come out in the cold either, and that's their biggest demographic.
They won't hold an election if they think they are going to lose either. They will wait until the tide turns. If it doesn't turn, they will wait until January '25.
Traditionally true, but I think they see the writing on the wall. They are now just breaking as much stuff as they can in the time that they have, so they can try to blame Labour for the fallout. They can break more things with a few extra months.
Ok, fine, clearly good news. But PM Sir Starmer . . . just a red Tory.
Anything is better at this point, we just need to get rid of the clowns and hopefully the shakeup (it the tories become third or lower and not the opposition) will give us the opportunity to really change the country for the better
I think the ideal situation would be a Labour minority government, with the Lib Dems as king maker to force PR through.
Of course, anything would be better than the Tories, New labour was so much better than the last decade of austerity. But I really dont trust Starmer and his constant changing of position/swing rightward.
They got the AV referendum out of coalition with the tories and got massacred. Has enough changed that PR is vaguely plausible? Both main parties are weakened by factionalism but that will probably make their voters fear PR even more since it presents the risk of the "other" beating them. I just don't see how PR can be achieved without an actual implosion of a party. The tories are really teasing it but they aren't broken yet it seems (much to my surprise).
I find comments like this perplexing.
Liberal Democrats are effectively centre right. They propped up Cameron's conservatives which brought in the austerity years that irreparably damaged the country. They promised to abolish tuition fees, then voted to increase them. They supported cuts to the NHS and police that were still now feeling the effects of.
You also referenced LD as a party but Starmer by name, even though we don't elect a president. He is just a figurehead for the party. If PMs had as much power as a president, don't you think it would be a much bigger deal when any of the last handful of Tory PMs resigned?
I find comments like this perplexing.
LibDems were always against it, but were a minority in a coilition and basically had no power. Tories were never going to vote against it, but were willing to put AV on the table.
They offered Labour first, but Labour didn't want a coilition. It was a gamble that could have changed everything, and unfortunately it was a gamble that the public didn't support because even Labour was against it.
Why anyone would vote Labour is beyond me, didn't they vote for tution fees in the first place?
As a (largely former) lib dem I'm not really sure we can be trusted to hold any sort of balance in power in a minority government
We didn't do so well last time
Is he really that bad? Genuinely asking, where can Iearn more?
You'll never get a sensible answer from people who put down comments like this.
Starmer would clearly be better than Sunak, but to say so would be a fundamental issue because their tribalism prevents them from saying anything nice about anyone other than their chosen flavour of Labour.
I mean, he is calling him a Tory. Says everything really, can't be a Socialist unless you agree with me on every point.
I mean, I’ve heard that he is more of a centrist compared to his predecessor, but what I’ve been hearing about him makes it sound like he is a plant - which I refuse to believe - but I do want to know where he stands.
I agree with you though, I don’t think I can get a clear answer here, unfortunately.
Nothing he has done makes him sound like a plant.
Are you referring to the delisting from last week where people were doing stupid things, get delisted and then whinging about it? Liking twitter posts that say Starmer should be removed and calling him names or walking away from crucial votes? Yeah, that's going to get you party support. They sound like idiots who shouldn't really be politicians.
Making factless snide remarks about the party leader, who has had his background combed through, had people in his party read through his background and still vote for him? Sound like a Tory trying to make Labour in-fight so they are less of a challenge to the Conservatives.
Not saying I’ve heard/seen him do anything that makes him look like a plant, I’ve heard people talking about him that way (sorry I badly worded that)
Agree with what you wrote
A surge to the right, further populism and eroding economic credibility.
Their voting cohort are either pensionable and dropping off or disaffected Red wall areas needing credible alternative messaging to shift away from Tory 'easy solutions' (blame everything else). The former will become less relevant. The latter needs more work by labour to avoid them becoming recurring voters for the conservatives.
The small number of true neoliberal elite and foreign actors are finding their influence curtailing for now ... but for them it's a long game. Assuming labour do get in for a couple of terms, they'll need to use the second term for some fairly heavy reform (house of lords, rebalancing of public ownership of key utilities, full transparency on party and individual donations, limit on external jobs MPs take)
Seems like surges to either the left or the right are electoral suicide for parties. Didn't work so well for Labour in the past two elections. Hopefully a more central position gets them back into power.
alternative messaging to shift away from Tory 'easy solutions' (blame everything else).
Totally agree with this, they should listen to the messaging of, "blame the rich" / "blame the corporations" / "blame the non doms" / "blame private schools". That will totally bring people on board without being divisive. 😐.
Labour made cute noises about electoral reform during their conference in the summer. I haven't heard anything about this since. It's a shambles. They need to get behind AV instead of standing in it's way. Represent the whole of the UK more fairly and we might see some sensible politics in this country.
The Labour members were in favour of electoral reform but the Labour leadership won't back it unfortunately, especially not whilst they're staring down the barrel of a majority government.
Blair almost backed electoral reform until he got a stonking majority.
That's a real shame. One of the easiest changes we could make to make our country more representative and fairer is to get rid of FPTP. I'm disappointed Labour aren't picking this up.
"could" doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
They didn't even drop below 150 in 1997, and Starmer isn't exactly as inspiring as Blair used to be. So this is a very unlikely outcome.
Clap for the Conservatives.
Given some of the rumours I’d bet a fair few of them already have the clap.