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Nah... she's nowhere near batshit crazy enough to make leader
They won’t though , the Tories have a majority government. I can’t see labour getting that can you ?
I agree that they won't, but not because they won't have a majority.
What they won't have is the will, commitment, and determination, to serve the class which they exist to serve in the same way that the Tories do.
I suspect that they will have a comfortable working majority. Although obviously nothing is certain.
JP neatly summarises it
I thought Penny Mordaunt was supposed to be one of the adults in the room?
STAND UP
AND
FIGHT
"I thought Penny Mordaunt was supposed to be one of the adults in the room"
I think she is one of these people who looks a lot more competent than they are and hides her crazy. Bit like Sunak really. Before he became leader and opened his mouth you thought he might be normal and maybe even up to the job of running the country - remember that, when all you had to criticise a politician with was the politics rather than their ability to be a human being and remotely able.
The purchase of the properties under the CPO regulations are part of the HS2 DCO. You can't (he says) just buy and sell them unless it's to fulfil the objectives of the legislation you've created.
Good move with HS2.
The ball is in Labour's court now with HS2 ... LOL!
Hmmm ... Starmer will now need to justify the spiraling cost if he is going to continue with HS2.
Starmer will now need to justify the spiraling cost if he is going to continue with HS2.
Well, yeah. This is known as being accountable if you're in government. The Tories should try it sometime with one of their many Prime Ministers.
Well, yeah. This is known as being accountable if you’re in government. The Tories should try it sometime with one of their many Prime Ministers.
Well, believe in politicians at your own peril.
They are two sides of the same coin.
Labour won’t be able to…the government is rushing to sell off the compulsory purchased land north of Crewe and possibly Euston too
If this is true already then it just proves that Sunak had already made the decision, all the talk of the last week from him was complete and utter male cow poo and he should be done for outright lying and misleading the media and the electorate.
If course nothing will happen, I doubt any interview he gives will be allowed to go anywhere near it either.
The whole lot of them are corrupt ****s who deserve to rot in jail.
Well, believe in politicians at your own peril.
They are two sides of the same coin.
That's tory-spread bollocks and you should be ashamed for repeating it. Normally I ignore the majority of your posts chewkw but not today, this matters far too much with very high stakes.
They are two sides of the same coin.
Gnomic.
They are two sides of the same coin.
No. No-one can be as bad as this lot. What are we on now, 4 Prime Minister's since the Brexit referendum in 2016?
Each has somehow managed to be worse than the previous one, even though the previous one was plumbing depths of stupidity, incompetence and corruption never before seen in British politics.
The scuminess and fraudulence of this lot is off the charts. ****ing hell, Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi (if they were still alive) would be using this lot as an example and a case study.
We're on an openly fascist dictatorship now. An unelected leader (one of many recently) making decisions by himself, the absolute annihilation of basic human rights and a desire to simply scorch earth for the rest of their term.
This is just open corruption now. Christ, do you remember the days when MPs had the decency to resign if caught having an affair? Now they have an affair (during ****ing lockdown!) then go on TV to "redeem" themselves.
****ing scum of the earth.
The problem now is that all the engineers and construction people will be tarred with the same brush
It's the consultants who are raking it in not the people on site doing the actual work
The spiralling cost made spiralling due to… oh yes, **** Tory scum.
Ah but that was the tory not the tory party and hence has nothing to do with the current tory government.
I really dont get why people try and claim that just because the party has been in power for 13 years they are responsible for anything that happened more than 13 minutes ago.
I was going to caveat it with unless whatever happened was positive but given their record I dont think that needs considering.
We’re on an openly fascist dictatorship now.
Calm down, our kid.
So the £36bn isn't new at all, it's just the already allocated funding
40 new train stations to go with the 40 new hospitals?
I wonder what Binner's would make of all of this...
Well I wonder if this will go anywhere?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-police-nicola-sturgeon-joke-b2424114.html
They are two sides of the same coin.
Sorry but just no. No.
Labour aren't the second coming or anything but to say they are just the current Tory party Mk2 is factually incorrect to anyone that has even vaguely watched the news over the last decade or so... not to mention the last 7 years particularly.
This isn't normal behaviour when did the Tory party. The Tory party has been eaten alive by a cancer it brought upon itself. A cancer it's doing its best to impose upon the rest of the country too.
That should never be allowed to be normalised.
They are two sides of the same coin.
There’s little point engaging with our resident STW. faux revolutionaries
They believe that 13 years of New Labour would have been exactly the same as 13 years of the Tories
The most polite reply to them, without getting into the detail of the utter and complete bollocks they’re clearly spouting is ‘yes dear comrade’
Oh… actually it was chewkw who made the comment. Best to just ignore it completely. Politics as assessed by a nursery teacher on crack
It’s the consultants who are raking it in not the people on site doing the actual work
That's a meaningless statement and isn't even a valid comparison.
Which consultants?
Are you referring to professional services companies? If so, you should be comparing their margins with contractors.
The thing that struck me on seeing Penny Mordaunt's call to fisticuffs was that the Tories are going full 'MAGA'.
However unlike the GOP there's several faces trying to play the Donald's role, the previous two PMs have cast a long shadow, and apparently several headbangers would welcome Dim Lizzie back, there's usefully evil idiots like Cruella and now the likes of Mordaunt trying to wind up the crazy wing with empty, tub-thumping rhetoric.
Lil' Rishi is a lame duck now, his speech was utterly uninspired and isn't really pushing the plebs or the party faithful's buttons.
Of course the game isn't about pitching to be the mug in charge for the GE, it's all about positioning themselves to be in the running for leader of the opposition (or maybe a shadow cabinet job).
They believe that 13 years of New Labour would have been exactly the same as 13 years of the Tories
It might not be exactly the same but the economic trajectory especially with a hands off BoE (yeah thanks Gordon) for both parties means that the economy would follow the same path, maybe with different lumps and bumps.
(And perhaps less total idiots in charge for sure.)
The only time Labour come to power these days seemingly is if they don't offer too much change to the status quo. So the Tories push to the right and Labour have to follow in that direction because they're terrified of losing the nebulous centre ground rather than making a strong argument for change - by Christ that should be easy.
Why do you think in the USA you have the democrats reining spending in and the republican's simply doing what the hell they want with the big bucks? It's the democrats that put the brakes on things - exactly where we are with Rachel Reeves.
Too keep dismissing New Labour as part of the neoliberal equation is total ignorance of where we are.
It's possible to totally despise every bone in a Tory skeleton and at the same time recognise Labour's inability to articulate a solution to Tory/Neoliberal problems.
The Tories know this as they set the parameters of the debate.
Economically they may not be that different now but even Starmer's more middling Labour Party is not even close to the tory party. The intentions, the approach, the rhetoric, fairer policies, less culture wars and ultimately how it feels to live in the UK would not be the same if Labour had continued for the last 13 years.
For all of evil Blair's faults it was to me a very much nicer time to be living in the UK which is because of all sorts of things along with those mentioned above.
If you thought it was all exactly the same then I think you have a short memory.
That’s a meaningless statement and isn’t even a valid comparison.
Which consultants?
You're right, it's very lazy cliche-mongering.
I’ve posted this so many times… I voted and campaigned against the New Labour government. What has happened since then has been a stiff learning lesson. We absolutely need to get, and keep, the Conservatives out of office. It’s one thing to disagree with the scale and ambition of the current Labour front bench and their policies. Quite another to think that it makes no difference whether our PM is backed by Labour or Conservative MPs. I have no idea how you could have lived in the UK over the last few decades and come to that conclusion. Do whatever you can to help your local constituency return an MP of any colour other than blue. Another 5 years of whoever comes after Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak as Tory PM isn’t going to treat any of us well in the UK (those living off assets in gated communities perhaps excepted).
Quite another to think that it makes no difference whether our PM is backed by Labour or Conservative MPs. I have no idea how you could have lived in the UK over the last few decades and come to that conclusion
In Scotland we have alternatives who have not lurched sharply to the right and whos aspirations are a bit more than "tory lite" It gives you a differnt view. I have not left the labour party. they have left me. they have nothing to offer Scotland. Two cheeks of the same arse.
Tell me this:
After all of the frothing in the mainstream media, outrage on social media, talk on places like here (even Pistonheads were negative about the speech) and the general consensus it was a bad day for the Tories in general how has the morning headlines, online and in print, painted a generally positive bent on everything with the story seemingly about how Labour is 'bad' and 'woke'?
What will Labour have to do at their conference to combat that?
All very good TJ, but the whole of the UK chooses the MPs who support the UK PM, so how people across England vote (or don’t vote) directly affects you as well I’m afraid. If enough decide that it matters not if their MP is Tory or Labour (in Tory/Labour marginals all over England outside the cities) that we end up with another Tory PM, it will effect the lives of everyone in Scotland as well.
If you thought it was all exactly the same then I think you have a short memory.
Or you were not comfortably off, with a bike or two to indulge your past time. (One of the reasons the referendum went the way it did).
For Scotland tory or labour will make no significant difference.
In the Rutherglen bye election the labour candidate has had to repudiate several key london labour policies
Or you were not comfortably off
People who were not comfortably off were still better under a Labour government than the last 13 years, after all the tory partys goals are the opposite of helping the less comfortably off are they not?
They may not have realised that when getting sucked in by Tory and Brexit nonsense but I can't do much about that.
Anyone listening to Radio4?
Sunak saying FE has been ignored when it comes to funding and staffing. If only the Conservatives had ignored it, rather than cut per pupil funding resulting in sixth from departments across the country closing, and A level teachers leaving the state sector for non-teaching and private school jobs in droves. The current staffing crisis in FE has been caused by him and his Conservative colleagues.
Yesterday I learnt just how much people despise this vile Tory government, which it was claimed to be "an openly fascist dictatorship".
Today I learn that if Labour aren't as bad as that, eg not openly fascist, then that's good enough and everyone should be grateful.
Basically the bar has been set so low that all Labour has to do is step over it.
Edit: Can we at least agree that if all a Labour government has to do is be a bit better than the Tories that the Tories aren't that bad?
This will ruffle some feathers...
Cameron & May attacking him for it will likely help his cause with a certain Tory demographic... but that same brexity bunch idolise Johnson
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1709672651789066591?s=19
Basically the bar has been set so low that all Labour has to do is step over it.
Whilst this is true, we don't have anyone else to raise the bar. If we did and the state of UK politics was such that the general public could actually believe and trust that the bar would actually be raised for the good of all, we'd vote them in.
The problem we have right now is that we can sit & watch the blatant activity our money being siphoned away to Friends of the Tories and our Country reduced to rack & ruin, or choose a moderately better alternative as an effort to turn that corner with the limited amount of trust we have.
At least the latter perhaps looks "better" to the majority if not "perfect", but thats the choice we have.
Its also worth remembering that whomever gets into power, the current Tory party have left them a lengthy and difficult policy of rebuilding of many things - infrastructure, health, finances, trust etc - which will take many years to be realised as an improvement by the Public. There is no instant Better UK/Britian the day after Election Day.
I guess, when your party has taken the national debt from 0.5 trillion to 2.5 trillion the debt payments, that it has to look for cost savings.... The debt repayments of which are estimated to be between 117 billion to 123 billion. Your austerity and the "big society" delivered fug all, but pain and misery to the population! Meanwhile whilst peddling it's all the immigrants fault, still!
Our standard of living, for the majority is worst the the majority of europe and we cannot even escape this clusterfug of a mess.
Tory's as predicted will implode, but sadly take us all with them. Here comes the IMF 😉
JeZ
Its also worth remembering that whomever gets into power, the current Tory party have left them a lengthy and difficult policy of rebuilding of many things – infrastructure, health, finances, trust etc
It is also worth remembering that when Labour created the NHS they had inherited a country ruined and on its knees following years of fighting an all consuming global conflict.
The NHS and all the great reforms which have benefitted ordinary working people were never implemented because it was easy. It wasn't because there was a great abundance of resources, on the contrary. But there was a great abundance of determination.
The level of determination to dramatically change course appears to be currently set a zero.
We should apparently be rejoicing because the next Labour government will, hopefully if it's not too difficult for them, tweek a few things here and there.
"Another 5 years of whoever comes after Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak as Tory PM isn’t going to treat any of us well in the UK (those living off assets in gated communities perhaps excepted)."
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - vote Tory to lose universal access to free-at-source healthcare, and then it'll start to get proper hard for ordinary folk. If you think it'll be different, go spend some time in the States.
I thought Penny Mordaunt was supposed to be one of the adults in the room?
The 'don't worry, the grown-ups will sort out this mess' argument has been well-rehearsed on here from 2016 onwards. I think we've had plenty of examples now to show us that there are no grown-ups within a country mile of the levers of power. Our political system just allows shallow, narcissistic, short-termers to rise to the top almost effortlessly, and they no longer have to surround themselves with anyone with anyone likely to argue with them.
Mordaunt is no different.
It might not be exactly the same but the economic trajectory especially with a hands off BoE (yeah thanks Gordon) for both parties means that the economy would follow the same path, maybe with different lumps and bumps.
That's a very grand statement and misses one fundamental difference in ideologies - the debt will have been run up by both parties, but Labour would have invested it rather than lining the pockets of their mates. A badly run contract that results in a hospital or new schools is still better off for everyone than containers full of PPE sitting uselessly by, or economic investment zones where the only beneficiaries are the people who had the land signed over to them (e.g., Teeside).
That's as bad as Chekw's 'they're all the same' nonsense.
The UK's capital investment vs GDP is laughable and pathetic. What we are investing is badly targeted and mismanaged
spawnofyorkshire
Its more that labour have made clear they will stick with the same sort of spending levels as the Tories. In England they can spend this in different ways which will make a bit of difference but in Scotland it would mean the budget remained the same. No change.
Whether you agree with Dazhs magical money tree or not 🙂 at this point in the economy I would guess most economists would there is plenty of room for government spending on investment and infrastructure without adverse effects. For labour to say they will stick to the same trajectory means no great change in the economic fortunes of the UK