We know the tories are buggered at this election.
Ooo... another time traveller. No one knows the national result yet, at all. There's a strong chance that millions of people will decide it's a done thing, as the campaign drags on, and leave it to other people to vote to stop a Conservative goverment. "If all these people are stopping the Tories, I don't need to". All we can do really is look at our own seats and work out what's going on and if it's possible it'll return a Conservative MP. Not based on the currently febrile polls, but on what's been happening at elections past... were the Conservatives so often surprise, and their opposition votes so often divided.
Go on then. Where are we going to get economic growth from? Where are we going to get the healthcare and hospitality workers we desperately need? How are we going to make up for the billions lost? nHow are we going to get the export trade back that we have lost?
without Rejoin they will be governing with both hands tied behind their back.
So please tell me what labour will actually do? they are saying nothing - and I mean nothing. No rejoin, no tax rises, no end to the two child benefit cap, no extra money for the NHS or education
so please tell me what they are going to be able to do?
Brexit is fundamentally flawed and it will be undone in time but the house is on fire and I’ll worry about replacing my porn collection after the fire is out.😉
The EU is not your porn collection - its the water supply we need to put the fire out 🙂
Tax rises have been announced by all the parties. The Tories claim they would/can use these to reduce other taxes. The other parties have announced targeted tax rises (the phrase "tax changes" is used more often though) that would be paired with increases in public spending in key areas (yes, it never actually works out that way... but it's a signalling of priorities, isn't it). I think we're at that point in the election campaign where reading the manifestos before claiming the parties are saying nothing is in order.
tiny marginal fiddlingh around the edges from labour - nothing that will raise the amount of money needed which is why they have said no more money for education or healthcare. Its also true Starmer has said that we cannot afford and end to the two child benefit limit.
given the scale of the problems ending non dom status is a drop in the ocean
So once again - please tell me how Labour are going to make stuff better without raising money or growth?
The EU is not your porn collection – its the water supply we need to put the fire out 🙂
To carry the analogy on though, if the Tories win, there won't be a fire engine available for days so water wont be needed.😁
Time traveller. Like it. 👍 My point that you should be voting for something rather than against it still stands. Playing whack a mole GTTO is equally time travelleresque given you're playing that game with polling data.
but I just find it interesting/worrying that after the last 15 years so many people are still doing it at this crucial election.
Agreed. I'm still 10% tempted to vote Labour tactically in my former safe Tory seat that looks like going to Labour.
For me though, Labour are essentially straight back to 15 years ago. They're going to bring in austerity by another name. Reeves is a Thatcherite economically (her own words) and don't even get me started on Streeting.
If it was a Jess Philips, Stella Creasy, Angela Rayner and Darren Jones led party, I'd potentially be more on board.
As it is, we've got ****s like that shit head Luke Akehurst being dropped into safe seats, and the red carpet rolled out for Natalie Elphicke. So no, I can't and won't vote for more of the same damaging politics. A slightly less corrupt version of Tory austerity with a red rosettes, is still Tory austerity. Green for me. We need to look beyond economic growth towards a more equitable model for society.
I just don’t see how honest conversations about the cost of living crisis can ignore Brexit.
So once again – please tell me how Labour are going to make stuff better without raising money or growth?
We know the answer, they can't.
So, growth is a long term strategy and should be aimed for but in the short term it's pie in the sky.
They will do what all government do. Borrow and hopefully raise targeted taxes.
The Tory (?) opposition will moan about it, so will the RW press... but Labour will counter with "Tory party left is with biggest financial crisis since WW2, we will not inflict austerity v2.0 on people etc". Much more importantly though, your average Joe doesn't give a shit about government debt if he can see a GP within a few days and isn't pulling his teeth out with plyers.
Government debt makes no discernable difference to my life or most other people's. All they need to do is not do it in the same way, or for the same reasons, as Truss.👍
Is it really too much to expect a basic level of professionalism that should be a prerequisite of the government?
If that is all you are after then you are easily pleased. You realise you could also have a highly professional fascist government?
You also realise that once in power the Labour government could also be not that good at stuff, have infighting (I hope so) etc,. so what do you do then? Lib Dems next time?
zomg
Full Member
I just don’t see how honest conversations about the cost of living crisis can ignore Brexit.
You have no idea how much I agree with you. 👍
The tragedy is, the electorate at large have other priorities, they also have no appetite currently for another 5 years of political and societal chaos due to trying to push a rejoin agenda through.
I wish it wasn't that way but we can only deal with the reality we have.
John Oliver summing it up well for Americans:
If they had pinned the blame for Brexit on the tories and pointed out the damage caused by brexit and that rejoin would be best
Labour are expecting that a sizable chunk of the folks that lent the Tories their vote so that they could "Get Brexit Done" will be giving the Labour party their vote in the understanding/ expectation that Brexit has been done, and they're not going to be asked about it again in the near [or medium] future. For a still sizable portion of the voting public Brexit is now no longer an issue, it has been decided, and for for better or worse that's the end of it.
Telling those folks that they were wrong, or misled, or asking if they would otherwise vote differently if offered the choice again is going to drive them to vote for the party that told them they'd get it done, got it done, and will more than happily tell them them that if you vote Labour they'll undo it.
The effort to re-join the EU (if we ever do) is decades away, not an issue for this, the next or even the parliament after that. If I was Starmer, I'd be joining in with the chorus, and at the same time working in the background (as Reeves has already suggested they do with her comments about "no one voted for Brexit just so that we could change the rules about how to handle chemicals") to make life as easy as it can be to trade with the EU, and maybe revisit the rules about young folks moving and working abroad. Those two things alone would make a massive difference to how much of a long term effect it continues to have while still be able to stand up in Parliament and say "we have respected the vote to leave and aren't intending to ask you again"
I’m being shown a lot of YouTube ads for Charlie Dewhirst, who tells me he’s running for the Conservative Party in Driffield. I usually skip ads as soon as possible, but I’m making an exception for these in the hope it costs him more. I am in Cambridge, so couldn’t vote for him even if I was that kind of ****.
If that is all you are after then you are easily pleased. You realise you could also have a highly professional fascist government?
But pragmatically - don't vote to GTTO, or don't vote to keep Reform out, you're voting to let them in. We essentially have two options - vote tactically for something better (Lab or LibDem or SNP in most places, lucky folks in a few places can vote Green) or vote for something that is effectively meaningless and let the tory or the reform candidate in.
We can grizzle that we don't like the choices we are presented with....but we are grown adults with the ability for rational thought - we are not 3 year olds having a tantrum that the pack of crisps they have been presented with is green not blue.
Get a grip people and vote to GTTO out, then put pressure on your elected representative for the change you want to see and make it a project to make that change happen over the next 5 years....
On my local facebook pages I'm seeing a lot of people commenting vote reform..... just had the reform leaflet through the door.
It couldn't really happen could it?
On my local facebook pages I’m seeing a lot of people commenting vote reform….. just had the reform leaflet through the door.
It couldn’t really happen could it?
Only if we don't vote tactically to stop it happening - we have some agency here people
Could what happen? Reform will get a few votes in most places, maybe a seat in places like Clacton. Most places they will lose their deposit.
Labour are expecting that a sizable chunk of the folks that lent the Tories their vote so that they could “Get Brexit Done” will be giving the Labour party their vote in the understanding/ expectation that Brexit has been done, and they’re not going to be asked about it again in the near [or medium] future. For a still sizable portion of the voting public Brexit is now no longer an issue, it has been decided, and for for better or worse that’s the end of it.
This. Yes, its a total cluster****! We all know that but you could argue that the whole reason the country is in this mess is because the country has been drifting, rudderless for 8 years since the referendum because Brexit was the only thing on the political agenda.
Opening that particular can of worms will launch us straight back into that. Fancy another 8-10 years of that (minimum!) while nothing else gets done and everyone just shouts at each other, all as the economy crumbles?
If we have a labour government then Brussels will know that they're dealing with grown ups who won't be rabidly confrontational and try and blame them for all their old failings. I'll take that for the time being, because thats about as good as its going to get
This country voted to shit the bed and whether we like it or not we are where we are... lying in the shit-stained sheets. Starmer can't just wave a magic wand and get us back to where we were before, he knows it'll take decades of negotiations
Right now there are more pressing priorities
On my local facebook pages I’m seeing a lot of people commenting vote reform
Thats the thing about the type of person who votes Reform... like their gobshite of a leader, they like to shout about it anywhere and everywhere, whether anyone wants to hear it or not.
If someone mentions reform I always remind them that Lord FarFar wants to stop their payments.
Just thinking aloud here, so not aimed at anyone!
I posted similar on here before I think.
With the possible exception of, what, two posters, everyone on here wants rid of the Tories. We have all seen the damage caused and there is no redemption arc for them. They are a known quantity, what they will "deliver" in another 5 years of power is certain to be objectively bad for most UK people.
That's about the only certainty in this whole GE thread. Would anyone disagree with that?
So theres a near 100% consensus on here that another 5 years of Tory government is not a good outcome.
Yet, even with that near total consensus, there are a multitude of opinions on how to change the UK and it's government for the better. This is nothing new, left wing (you can decide where you are on the spectrum) types have argued for generations about similar topics. It fractured the consensus then as now and its consistently allowed the Tory party to be the most successful (at winning) democratic party in Western politics. We, in part, are to blame for that.
The left (meant in the broadest of terms!) have become unwitting allies of the Tories and the country has paid a high price for it.
We either get our shizzle together, accept that to get anywhere near the country/politics we want will take years and will always involve compromise... or... the next generation of the left will still be arguing about the same minutiae and the Tories or Reform will still be governing us whilst chuckling at our pursuit of perfect.
The Tory party is the weakest it's been in modern history, it will be unforgivable if we can't get our act together and absolutely demolish them. The generations to come will not thank us if we dont.
PR, real socially responsible policies, a fairer society, rejoining the EU... it's all there for the taking and it's not the Tories with the power to stop it. It's us.
I think I'll go for a walk now.
lucky folks in a few places can vote Green
AFAIK there's no constituency where the tactical vote to get rid of the Tories; is to vote Green.
I just don’t see how honest conversations about the cost of living crisis can ignore Brexit.
They can't. But since when has honesty had anything to do with Brexit?
24th June 2016 was the day I woke up to realise I didn't live in the country I thought I did. I despise Brexit and all it stands for.
But to a lot of people it was a never-ending shitshow that held a mirror up to the UK and they didn't like what they saw. A lot of folk (Leave and Remain) simply want to forget it and move on. Obviously they can't and the country can't. Obviously they need to have it pointed out to them that x problem or y problem is caused by Brexit, but...
Not by Labour when the prize is getting these Tories out. Starmer is lying when he says "no economic case for rejoin". Anyone interested knows that. But a big section of society is wilfully ignorant because they don't want to go into it again. Starmer has had a quick education in realpolitik and this is one he has got right. And I say that with a heavy heart.
We don't just need a Labour government. We need one with a huge majority and mandate who can edge us closer to the EU in stages.
Ooh, I dunno, borrowing to invest? The one thing we can do that we couldn’t before Brexit is chuck money at companies directly.
ruled out by labour.
this is my simple point. labour have ruled out all the avenues for improving the lot of the country. NO increased funding from taxation or borrowing, No improved funding from growth because out of the EU we will find this really hard.
We need a government that will solve the issues we have. labour are not offering this. They are offering more of the same with a bit of compassion
PR, real socially responsible policies, a fairer society, rejoining the EU… it’s all there for the taking
And all ruled out by labour
AFAIK there’s no constituency where the tactical vote to get rid of the Tories; is to vote Green.
Fair cop - the green candidates in Brighton (we're gonna miss Caroline Lucas 😥) and Brizzle aren't gonna be kicking out a Tory - but the point that in those places you can vote with your heart as well as your head still stands even if not clear in my post
And all ruled out by labour
In this parliament yes. We need to keep applying pressure, keep talking about it, and lobby who you can.
I wonder if Reform getting ~18% of the vote and three seats will help highlight the issue.
Ooh, I dunno, borrowing to invest?
.
ruled out by labour
Once again, you're speaking without reading up on the policies proposed. Borrowing to invest is part of the plan. There's £17.5 billion of additional borrowing in the first parliamentary term for the green prosperity plan for a start. But, anyway... borrowing going up is happening now and after the election whoever wins (see all the analysis and reporting of so called "black holes" in all the manifestos). Whether that is invested in our futures, or pissed up the wall, is down to who we all return as our MPs next month.
Go on then. Where are we going to get economic growth from?
Investing in energy and technology along with building a solid partnership with the EU, exactly what Labour have promised to do.
Where are we going to get the healthcare and hospitality workers we desperately need?
People have to want to come here first. This can be done first by dealing with the overt xenophobia of the previous policies, an increase in staff benefits and a better functioning system. All things we can do by ourselves.
How are we going to make up for the billions lost?
You can't. It's gone. What we can do is secure our energy, our infrastructure and make life better for people from the ground up which will appeal to current residents and potential future migrant workers.
nHow are we going to get the export trade back that we have lost?
By building a better relationship with our closest trading partner - exactly what Labour have promised to do. This is the first step in rejoining. Be trustworthy, be welcoming, be stable, be a good partner. Right now, we have none of that so why would they even entertain it?
And all ruled out by labour
Tj, you aren't going to get what you want in the next parliament, probably not the next one after that either.
Anyone that says otherwise, whatever their politics, is being disingenuous. There are no short cuts or simple solutions here. The paragraph of minevyou quoted is likely to be a generational change. Even then, it won't be completely what you want, others will feel the same, as although we all want "better", there will never be "perfect". The world just doesn't work that way.
(Damn you, I am going out for a walk now. 😉)
Right now, we have none of that so why would they even entertain it?
Exactly! It’s going to take a lot of effort to detoxify the relationship with the EU, but the first huge step is to get the rabid Brexiteers who delivered this shitshow out of government
Everything else is secondary, because without that the process can’t even begin
Investing in energy and technology along with building a solid partnership with the EU, exactly what Labour have promised to do.
Where are we going to get the money from? Raising taxes beyond a bit of fiddling around the edges and borrowing more ruled out by labour
People have to want to come here first. This can be done first by dealing with the overt xenophobia of the previous policies, an increase in staff benefits and a better functioning system. All things we can do by ourselves.
EU folk are not going to come here without freedom of movement so thats not going to happen either
By building a better relationship with our closest trading partner – exactly what Labour have promised to do. This is the first step in rejoining. Be trustworthy, be welcoming, be stable, be a good partner. Right now, we have none of that so why would they even entertain it?
Sure - lying about brexit " no economic case to rejoin" and continuing to be enthusiastic brexiteers ruling out any serious rapprochement is really going to do that
Oh, by the way, apologies to those voting for third or fourth placed parties when choosing not to choose their MP… I shouldn’t throw around blame and accusation so harshly… I’ve voted the same way many many times before… most of my life in fact… but I just find it interesting/worrying that after the last 15 years so many people are still doing it at this crucial election.
Some of us can afford to have principles, I'm in an SNP/Labour stronghold so I can happily vote with my conscience. But it's that experience that frustrates me so much, SNP were nobodies not that long ago, another wasted vote. Look at them now.
I know I bang on about this a lot but I've never had anyone tell me why that couldn't work elsewhere.
Poopscoop - of course I won't get everything I want but labour have ruled out all routes to improving the country. NO increase in taxation or borrowing and ruling out the biggest engine of growth so no increasing in budgets so no significant improvements
I do not think some of you realise how much of a right wing party labour has become.
NO increase in taxation or borrowing and ruling out the biggest engine of growth
Apart from the announced tax changes, and extra borrowing, and working closer with our neighbours.
Not enough of any of those three things in a first term for you (or me as it happens)... but say that... rather than "NO"... as it seriously weakens your points. Not enough, not fast enough... that we can agree on. More than the Tories? That we can agree on. Why not more and faster? That's the bit where the discussion is... if it's even relevant right now while the Conservatives are still the government, and the opposition parties can do the square root of nothing.
Sure – lying about brexit ” no economic case to rejoin”
For the sake of accuracy, the quote from Starmer was "There's no case to rejoin" Here's the quote
Sir Keir told broadcasters: "I have repeatedly said that there's no case for going back into the EU and that includes the single market and the customs union."
The word "economic" is not something that the leadership of the Labour party have ever used in this context in official statements.
Extra taxation - tiny amount of fiddling round the edges
Extra borrowing - not in the statements from Reeves I have seen - indeed categorically ruled out - got a link to different?
Working closer with our neighhbours? By categorically ruling out CU, SM and FoM there will be no rapprochement that will have any effect economically. Without these things the barriers to trade remain in place
Where are we going to get the money from? Raising taxes beyond a bit of fiddling around the edges and borrowing more ruled out by labour
By encouraging investment from the private sector. UK RnD Spending is currently around 3% of GDP, but almost 40% of that is government. In japan and South Korea, it's RnD spending is higher 3.77% and ~5% respectively, but government spending is lower ~20%. Why? Private investment. People/companies invest in prosperous, stable places. Lets get that sorted, huh?
Let's get our energy pricing model disentangled from Gas prices and aligned to the greener technologies that're being put in place. GBE (by Labour) coupled with what Octopus (see - private investment) are doing will help this. Stabilising energy will enable people to spend more (more tax revenue without raising taxes) and the economy will grow....
People/companies invest in prosperous, stable places. Lets get that sorted, huh?
To sort that needs rejoining the EU. Its the only way. No one is going to invest in a UK outside the EU.
Things I hope a Labour government will bring -
A level of competence. The latest Tory govt has the lowest parliamentary sitting time
The average duration of a Commons sitting day in the current parliamentary session, which began in November, has been 7 hours and 9 minutes, a record low since New Labour came to power in 1997, the FT found.
The end of the stupid Rwanda scheme
Kinder politics - less demonising of flavour of the month minorities
Extra taxation – tiny amount of fiddling round the edges
The folks I still know in Labour have said to me that they've got pretty robust data and polling that suggests that the public appetite for extra taxation for spending is very very limited.
Extra borrowing – not in the statements from Reeves I have seen – indeed categorically ruled out – got a link to different?
The statements I've seen from Reeves explicitly say that they'll only borrow to invest. In fact that's been her routine line for quite some time now. Same as Gordon Brown's rules
Working closer with our neighhbours?
See comments earlier about her saying things about rules and standards “I don’t think anyone voted leave because they were not happy that chemicals regulations were the same across Europe,” Reeves said, adding that immigration was a primary concern for her constituents who voted to leave. Business Matter article
No one is going to invest in a UK outside the EU.
They will but it will be the asset stripping venture capitalist types - the people the Tories love
