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Luckily Kuenssberg is here to sooth the Tory woes this morning. Yesterday was actually ok for them in reality.👍
Cool. Cool.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68956828
But the LibDems did about same
They took over a hundred seats off the Conservatives. This is not “about the same”. Taking seats is what matters, not increasing your share of the vote in seats where you can’t win. The Tories have doubled down on FPTP, but it looks like [cross fingers] the public are getting wise to this and are making their votes count to remove power from them.
Luckily Kuenssberg is here to sooth the Tory woes this morning. Yesterday was actually ok for them in reality.👍Cool. Cool.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68956828/blockquote >
Are you reading a different article or something?So, for now, the Conservative Party seems to have made its choice. To hold on to power for a few more very difficult months with the hope of improving a dire situation, rather than taking a chance to change things that could spiral into an unknown chaos. If the Conservatives ultimately crash to a big defeat, this weekend might come to represent the moment it accepted its fate...
But as the final tallies of winners and losers are finalised, after millions of votes that suggested how unpopular the Tories are right now, Rishi Sunak's backers believe he is safe from his party. But are the Conservatives safe from the country's verdict? Certainly not.
^ agree. I don't see the bias that others ascribe to LK and the BBC - she may be a Tory at heart but the reporting seems reasonably balanced to me. A balance of opinions and only the pro-Tory ones being picked up as evidence?
In isolation "the gap between the Conservatives and Labour comes out at 9%: not, theoretically, an insurmountable gap to close when the general election campaign is miles away and could bend the curves" might lead to the opinion she's biased, but there's plenty of counter too.
But the LibDems did about same
.
They took over a hundred seats off the Conservatives. This is not “about the same”.
A deliberately edited quote so that you can take it out of context - well done Kelvin 👏
The full sentence shows context and that it refers to share of the vote:
But the LibDems did about the same – they got 17% in 2021
Yes thanks to the peculiarities of FPTP, which you refer to, the LibDems greatly increased their total amount of seats, but there was no "huge" swing to the LibDems, which was what was being discussed.
Instead of carefully cropping my sentences and deliberately taking my comments out of context how about you putting a figure to this "huge" LibDem swing? Swings are usually measured in percentages, not seat numbers.
And btw Reform UK managed to get just 2 seats on Thursday, do you think that is a fair reflection of the level of support they enjoy? Since you apparently want to use seat numbers rather than percentage share.
https://youtube.com/shorts/6EQqh5TAxOU?si=tnEGi-8g2O3vvn7X
Someone has just drawn my attention to the fact that apparently women's safety is being mortgaged at the altar of mass immigration. I did not know this.
Braverman is sticking the boot in he needs to "own" the result, or it's all your ****ing fault 😉
and Mark Harper thinks these result point to a hung parliament, deluded doesn't even cut it
public are getting wise to this and are making their votes count to remove power from them.
I think an important thing to factor - and it's not how political parties like to think - is to a great extent the biggest motivating factor for many voters is 'Spite'. (In fact the biggest motivating factor in many people's lives is spite - you just need to be in a traffic jam to witness that).
Parties will lay out their offerings as policies and manifestos, in the hope or belief that voters will sign up for their vision of a future Britain, but to a great extent voters aren't voting in support parties will do, they are voting in judgement of what the current government has done. Voters care less about who might lead us next - by default it'll be Labour rather than any other party - than they do about being sure who doesn't.
Despite what some of the deluded tories think, i have a feeling the election could be even worse than they expect.
Tactical voting has led of an effect when you could vote in other parties.
In the ge i could see there being a huge amount of tactical voting to try and obliterate the tories. I hope anyway
In the ge i could see there being a huge amount of tactical voting to try and obliterate the tories.
🤞🏼
@grahamt1980 There's a theory that says in London, LD & Green voters voted for Khan, soft Tories voted LD.
I also think that in the local elections, independents do hugely well over local/single issues. Labour no doubt lost vote over Gaza. Will that be the same in the GE?
Just walked past Downing Street, very quiet, not even the whisper of whining on the wind. Lil Rishi must have cried himself to sleep by now.
In fact the biggest motivating factor in many people’s lives is spite – you just need to be in a traffic jam to witness that
Nah I don't think so - in traffic, a lot of what people do that looks like nastiness is just ignorance, they have no idea what effect it has on people. The thing that rules most people's lives is sentiment. or emotion. Sometimes that's spite.
The thing I'd take from this all, is the lack of impact of the right wing news and media is having. People seem to be fact checking what they hear and I'll happily take the positives from this. In fact the longer rich sunk stays in, the better. So really happy days 😉
JeZ
The thing I'd take from this all, is the lack of impact of the right wing news and media is having. People seem to be fact checking what they hear and I'll happily take the positives from this. In fact the longer rich sunk stays in, the better. So really happy days 😉
JeZ
funnily enough braverman has taken her own advice and decided the best course of action is to keep on digging, even daily mail columnists think she's lost it
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1787042584398811293?t=IIpGBN-HGBcanpgq0XTCGg&s=19
Currently sitting in a cafe listening to a Home Counties libertarian broadcasting his views from an adjacent table: "I actually have a counter revolutionary perspective...things have to get worse before they get better...I actually want Labour to win...people in this country have forgotten what it's like to serve under socialist bureaucracy [he is about 24 years old]...the people need a wake up call...London is a different country now...law and order have broken down". Unfortunately law and order haven't broken down in London sufficiently that I can squeeze this bottle of chili sauce up his nose and get away with it.
Labour ... would open our borders & who would indoctrinated our institutions & schools with PC madness
"by going full Uncle Tom"
I don't think it's acceptable for someone who is presumably white, to make such an accusation - loathsome as she may be.
London is a different country now…law and order have broken down”.
Film4 showed London Has Fallen last night.
Maybe they'd also predicted a Hall win or maybe it was a dig at how, yes indeed, law and order is a distant memory as terror stalks the land.
Or it could just be a brainless Gerard Butler action flick and there's no higher meaning.
I guess we'll never know.
I don’t think it’s acceptable for someone who is presumably white, to make such an accusation – loathsome as she may be.
Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:
‘The term "Uncle Tom" is used as an epithet for an excessively subservient person, particularly when that person perceives his or her own lower-class status based on race. It is similarly used to negatively describe people who betray their own group by participating in its oppression, whether willingly or not.’
I’d say that making a speech spouting far right guff to excuse colonialism and the slave trade pretty much fits the bill. Imagine if a white bloke had made the same speech. It’s also worth bearing in mind that she represents a party where at least one of her Parliamentary colleagues still owns, and profits handsomely from a plantation in ‘the colonies’.
Tory MP from slave-owning family set to gain £3m from sale of former plantation
excessively subservient person
In what way is she excessively subservient?
Anyway, I think there are better ways of describing her negative qualities.
Do we really need to chuck around racial epithets to make our point?
“by going full Uncle Tom”
Not acceptable.
Language like that is hardly likely to attract (or even retain) black voters to the Labour party. Though to be fair, judging by the make up of this forum there's little chance of someone black actually reading those comments.
Anyhow, binners is just relieved that Starmer is facing Sunak at the next election rather than her, (at least thatt's how I understand his consistent and hyperbolic vitriol against her.) He knows she would pose a much greater threat to Labour's chances.
That and he's got a few quid on Suella to win the Leadership.
On the contrary. I believe that the majority of voters would find her extreme far right views absolutely abhorrent. That combined with her obnoxious general demeanour. She makes Rishi look like Jeremy Corbyn
But if you believe the bookies then she’s been nailed on favourite as next Tory leader for about 12 months now. The membership, mostly male, pale and stale, absolutely love her. Hardly surprising when she’s happy to vocalise what they feel they can’t, because… erm… woke
Not acceptable.
Only if the accusation is not justified I would have thought.
Since one accepted definition is "a black person who is overeager to win the approval of whites" I think it describes Suella Braverman perfectly.
It is clear, to me anyway, that Braverman's relentless attacks on asylum seekers and migrants from poor third world countries is designed to seek personal approval from white racists both inside her party and among the general public.
IMO it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise. Presumably those who object do so because the term is dependent on her skin colour, but it would be disingenuous to pretend that her skin colour is not a relevant issue - it is.
Massive lesson from history - the Tories only generally win when they’re centre right (yes, I know Thatcher is an exception to this, as is 2019). Tacking further right, as much as Cruella and the membership might want that, is likely to keep them out of power after the GE.
As has been said, they’re losing votes in three directions - Lab, LD and Reform. Move right, more of their prospective voters will go to the LDs and Lab (in all but a very few seats e.g. Hallam it’s one or other vs the Tories, and on the evidence from the LEs people are wise enough to vote tactically), move to the centre and they’ll lose the gammon vote to Reform. They’re stuffed.
The Tories are currently haemorrhaging votes to Reform UK precisely because they have moved to the right on the issue of immigration and asylum seekers.
All they have managed to do is to make the issue mainstream and an acceptable election issue. When racism becomes an acceptable and apparently respectable issue who are you gonna give your vote to? A proper no- nonsense racist party like Reform UK!
The Tories best chance to regain votes is to move back to the centre and help to ostracise and marginalise the racists.
Playing the racists at their own game is a certain loser for the Tories - Reform UK have more than double their support in the last year, most of it has come from former Tory supporters.
I just wish someone would ask Braverman something along the lines of:
"since 2019, the Conservatives have moved further to the right, since then you've been hemorrhaging votes. Why do you think that moving right again will win you more votes?"
I do not understand why they think harder right policies will win them an election. All the evidence of late shows it's being rejected by the British public.
I do not understand why they think harder right policies will win them an election.
Oh it's obvious - when they said "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", they've not (yet) been tough enough.
Since the current abysmal treatment of refugees / asylum seekers is not deterring them, they need to be even more abysmal towards them.
All the layabout benefit claimants have not been convinced to go back to work in spite of one of the most appalling benefit systems going so we need to be even more harsh with them.
They've painted themselves into a corner and you can't row back from that. This is the problem with setting out unworkable policies based on populist slogans. They don't work, they're seen not to work and the only way to progress from there is to make them tougher still and announce more populist nonsense about how you're going to fire immigrants into the sun. That too fails to work so what's the next step? There isn't one and suddenly you're viewed not as being tough and resourceful, you're viewed as being a total failure.
You can get away with blaming the lack of it working on lefties, ECHR, snowflakes and wokeists for a while but eventually you run out of people to blame. And along the way, you're losing support from even the gammons who might think "hang on, that's a bit OTT even for us..." Kind of like the "are we the bad guys?" meme from the Mitchell and Webb Show.
It's a lesson centre-right parties across Europe haven't learned, to be fair - and the hard-right parties will always find a more extreme viewpoint.
Oh it’s obvious – when they said “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, they’ve not (yet) been tough enough.
Wasn't that a New Labour strapline in 1997?
@Tom-B It was, but I thought 'Causes of crime' meant improving education/opportunity?
Reading the Observer today, there are growing protests about the asylum seekers who are to be deported to Rwanda, particularly in the ‘performative cruelty’ of the manner in which its being done
I think that once the reality of this starts to get mainstream coverage and these ‘immigrants’ become real people, with lives and families, I don’t think it’s going to the vote winner Rishi hopes for.
The gammons will love it, obviously, but I’d imagine that most people are going to get increasingly uncomfortable with footage of real people being rounded up like criminals and packed off to Africa
And that’s before factoring the enormous cost and the fact that it won’t make a blind bit of difference to ‘Stop the Boats’
"Only if the accusation is not justified I would have thought. Since one accepted definition is “a black person who is overeager to win the approval of whites” I think it describes Suella Braverman perfectly."
But binners was talking about Kemi Badenoch.
You need to spend more time 'thinking' and less time typing.
To be fair there’s barely a fag paper between Badanoch and Cruella as far as both ideology and personality are concerned. Both utterly vile human beings
You need to spend more time ‘thinking’ and less time typing.
Thank you for the tip.
I still "think" that it describes Suella Braverman perfectly.
I’ve just seen her described as ‘a Ouija board linked to the malevolent presence of Enoch Powell’ 😂
I know it's not Rishi but there's a most excellent spat on X. Count Binface got more votes than the Britain First candidate but the BF lot are fighting back demanding that the votes other BF candidates got in constituencies where Count Binface wasn't standing are also included.
Ha the BF lot have clearly been on the nose beers early doors.....I love the claim that they beat Laurence Fox 🤦
Hey, it’s working for America, so it’s bound to work for us!
Their system is even more broken than ours, so maybe not the best comparison. But some spod in Tory hq is Def looking across the pond for ideas
I expect the Tories will already have their troops taking pointers off Trumps people and we’re about to see the nastiest election campaign ever, by some margin
That truly unhinged black and white film they put out against Khan probably being the sign of what’s to come
politecameraaction
Are you reading a different article or something?
Nope.😉
Second, the pundits' calculators suggested that if the whole country had voted on Thursday, the gap between the Conservatives and Labour comes out at 9%: not, theoretically, an insurmountable gap to close when the general election campaign is miles away and could bend the curves.
One cabinet minister said that after months of "frothing at the mouth about apocalypse actually, maybe we could have a hung parliament. This will encourage people to believe there is a fight worth having."
Remember too, Labour fell so far behind in 2019 that it needs to shift millions of votes, not a few here and there, to win outright when it comes to the national question.
And even if the numbers look scary in lots of parts of the country, with the Tories losing hundreds of campaign foot soldiers, changing the leader to an as-yet-undecided alternative candidate might just cause more disruption, more bellyaching, more turmoil.
To be fair there’s barely a fag paper between Badanoch and Cruella as far as both ideology and personality are concerned. Both utterly vile human beings
The other thing they have in common is a density greater than Osmium which is an achievement all on its own.
crazy-legs took the words out of my mouth in a post he made earlier. 👍
The problem with going every further right is you have to keep making ever more extreme and impossible to implement policies, eg Rwanda.
Secondly, however far right they go, Reform will still say it's not enough and Reform will ALWAYS be further right as they know they will never be in power, hence can promise policies that will never need to be implemented. "You want only white unicorns, we will impliment that!"
Basically, Reform can be far right x ♾️.
So yes, the Tories should be going towards the centre but they now haven't got the time to do so and even if they did their own voters and Reform will crucify them.
It's entirely of their own making, this existential crisis. It would be hugely funny if it wasn't so damaging to the country.
Now many, many people know about the huge advantage tactical voting gives, I hope we can keep the far right of of power, whatever it's party name morphs into.
I think, @poopscoop, if you read that pieces and came away with the conclusion "Laura K is a raging Tory", it's because you thought that before you began it, and not because of what she wrote.
It's not a certainty that Labour will win, and you wouldn't expect a political journalist to make that kind of sweeping assertion now anyway. "not, theoretically, an insurmountable gap" is hardly telling the Tories they're golden. And the reasons why she thinks Sunak is safe from internal challenge for the moment are sensibly explained.
politecameraaction
Free Member
I think, @poopscoop, if you read that pieces and came away with the conclusion “Laura K is a raging Tory”, it’s because you thought that before you began it, and not because of what she wrote.
It's ok for us to disagree politecameraaction and I don't get into the permawars, I don't believe you do either. Your opinion is just as valid as mine even if it differs from mine.👍
Most importantly, you and I agree in about 95% of our politics, we want the same thing. 4% of that 5% remaining is probably how we define the best way to do it and the last 1% is about Laura K in this particular article.
(As an aside, I would be mortified to see the Beeb disappear and never have bought into it being biased.)
bigrich
Full Member
If i lived there, I’d d be a bit worried that big gains for the centre left (libs, labour and the greens) means the Tories will double down on hard right policies
That's absolutely the direction they will at least say that are going to voters. Hell, they actually would go ever further right but they only have the time for announcements now, not enough to actually do much about them. Thankfully.
Going to be a nasty GE campaign though. It's going to be vicious and I still think there will be violence aimed at some poor sod in one of the more moderate parties.
The whole MAGA rigged election trope has been embraced too, within the right/ far right, even a Tory MP gave it inferred support on X in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink way yesterday.
The Tory party has been on a one way journey into right wing nationalist oblivion since 2016. It’s been a Talibanisation, with each of these unhinged factions claiming that only they’re the true believers.
It’s now just completely unhinged and nobody but the real nutters want to go where they want to take us
So **** ‘em! Let them fight it out with Farage and Reform as to who can be the most mental, while those of us who are ok with the 21st century and don’t want to live in some myth of 1955 just leave them to their ever decreasing circles
That’s absolutely the direction they will at least say that are going to voters.
Because they feel their growing popularity is all down to that?
I think a much better ploy might be to lie to the electorate concerning the economy - they have always been very good at that and it has given them some excellent results in the past.
It just needs some nonsensical but well delivered myths endlessly repeated until people start believing that they must be true because they hear them every day.
After all the hard work your Conservative government has put in inflation is finally falling and everything is going to be really great very soon. Don't spoil it by voting Labour because they will trash the economy - everyone knows that Labour always do.
It sounds a bit more of a convincing reason to vote Tory than "we're better racists than Reform UK". No one is going to believe that Nigel Farage isn't a better racist than Rishi Sunak.
ernielynch
Because they feel their growing popularity is all down to that?I think a much better ploy might be to lie to the electorate concerning the economy – they have always been very good at that and it has given them some excellent results in the past.
I agree. Heading further right seems to have backfired but there are still countless influential Tories going on X and TV stating they aren't cutting through because they, "insert quote about not being real Tories at the moment, or spouting off a far right agenda they need to embrace."
They seem to have a political momentum behind them now that seems unstoppable within the party. I've no doubt they will talk a pack of lies about the economy but I think even they know that much of the electorate simply won't buy it anymore. We are all living the reality everyday. Add in the NHS, "pothole armageddon", dentists etc and they can lie all they want. It won't float.
It seems certain now that their main battle line will be immigration, way too late to change tack and way to much infighting to steer a new course.
Mad, as it doesn't seem to be working but the Tory party is it's own worst enemy now.
Just saw this on the FT front page as if by magic. Lol pretty much says what I believe they will do.
Just saw this on the FT front page as if by magic. Lol pretty much says what I believe they will do.
They have arrived at the meme of the dog sitting in a room on fire “this is fine”
Unfortunately for us, we are in the room with them shouting “help”
the Tories ignoring completely that theyre now the 3rd party in local government, behind the lib Dems
desperately chasing reform votes, meanwhile.... https://twitter.com/MattSingh_/status/1787094579038093789?t=Mhg87NabmWqkGPDI3AFTgA&s=19
Tactical voting, the Tory nightmare.👍
They (Tories) will be screaming about it being unfair/rigged after the election. However, the far right have use of the same tool and shouldn't be underestimated in the future.
After all the hard work your Conservative government has put in inflation is finally falling and everything is going to be really great very soon. Don’t spoil it by voting Labour because they will trash the economy – everyone knows that Labour always do.
They have been saying that for the last year and I think at last a lot of people are not falling for it. Everyone they send out to the media each day says the same unchallenged crap and the lazy people 'interviewing' them can't be bothered to put them straight every day so are as much to blame
Being kind to them they may not have time as they have their own agenda/questions to get through as easy enough to ask ("So what exactly did the tory party do to bring down inflation" and "how are people going to be better off seeing that things are continuing to get more expensive by the month")
This is also the Biden dilemma: there's no point telling people the economy is OK. If they don't already feel it, they won't believe you regardless of the facts. "You've never had it so good".
They have been saying that for the last year and I think at last a lot of people are not falling for it.
They really haven't . What do you think the very real and obvious threat from Reform UK is based on - the state of the economy? Support for Reform UK has more than double in the last year.
Suella Braverman was making the headlines again yesterday and she was urging Sunak to cap legal immigration, withdraw form the European Convention on Human Rights, and stop the boats. That's the sort of things that the Tories have been talking about in the last year.
When people claim that the Tories have lurched to the right it really isn't with regards to the economy. I see no evidence that the Tories have become significantly more right-wing in that respect, and yet everyone on this thread seems to agree that they have become more right-wing.
bigrich
Full Member
There was a Tory MP on the radio who said that responding to voters going left by going further right was a mistake.
He's spot on of course but he's a marginalised voice in what now passes for the Tory party.
grahamt1980
Full Member
The phrase “never correct your enemy while they are making a mistake” is more and more accurate
Damn true, the Tories are their own worst enemy.
And in answer to what happened last week, they couldn’t signal their total desperation and complete bankruptcy of ideas more than bycoming out with this latest culture war nonsense.
We’ll file this under the ‘seriously? You think this is what the country needs right now? Really? Section.
You couldn’t make it up. Though they clearly are…
Gender-specific toilets to be required in non-residential buildings in England
When people claim that the Tories have lurched to the right it really isn’t with regards to the economy. I see no evidence that the Tories have become significantly more right-wing in that respect
What about the bit where Liz bypassed the OBR, ignored all sane advice had the Tufton Street lot conduct a financial experiment on the entire UK by announcing billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts, mainly for the rich?
That spooked such left-wing organisations as the Bank of England and the international bond markets and crashed the economy, requiring an enormous bailout to stop the entire financial sector from collapsing
Its difficult to imagine how an economic policy could have been any more right wing
@bigrich Some of them do have insight, but the one thing that's been consistently depressing since, well, 2016 is the way that the One Nation wing of the Conservative party have sat on their hands whenever they've had an opportunity to rein in the headbangers.
What about the bit where Liz bypassed the ONR, ignored all sane advice had the Tufton Street lot conduct a financial experiment on the entire UK by announcing billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts, mainly for the rich?
You do realise that they quickly abandoned all that and sacked Liz Truss don't you?
There is no evidence that Tory economic policy has significantly changed or become more right-wing in the last year.
Sunak in his desperation is promising further tax cuts, which everyone knows can’t be funded by anything other than taking a hatchet to already decimated public service budgets. The sick and disabled are being lined up to take that particular hit. All while committing to a massive increase in defence spending
How much more right wing do you think he could get?
How much more right wing do you think he could get?
Promising tax cuts? I can't remember a Tory government that didn't.
And btw the criticism that the Tories receive on this thread isn't focused on their tax policies.
Does this mean gender specific rivers?
Its difficult to imagine how an economic policy could have been any more right wing
The statement though was "lurch to the right" which it really wasnt.
I know it has been reinvented by tufton street and the right wing rags that it was all Truss but if you were paying attention the tories and right wing rags were supporting it as a return to proper right wing policies. It was just austerity dusted off.
If it hadnt been for the pension funds playing stupid games with risk they may well have succeeded in it.