Forum menu
matt_outandabout
Full Member
Can I just check – this is suggesting Lib Dem as opposition?
Wow.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
It's possible but depends upon which column turns out to be the more accurate. Large margin of error.
At my 'NHS' Dentist that I've been going to for 50 years - that was recently taken over, they wouldn't offer me a scale and polish under NHS rules - as not clinical.
But I could have had a private one in the same session for 150 apparently.
Markets work so well for us.
But let's not 'spook' the money men (sloshers of public money) with better invested services for its people.
I also see that the Neoliberal shrill special Paul Johnson at the Institute For Shit has pointed his finger at Labour's imaginary financial black-hole.
Doesn't work like that Paul.
But we know why you want to pretend it does - you want to saddle Labour with limited choices, to the detriment of us all.
Which is clearly why investment has fallen off a cliff since brexit.
Can I just check, are you talking about foreign direct investment?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyxx742dgv1o.amp [ Why Waveney Valley is a key election battleground ] https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-06-20/waveney-valley-the-green-target-thats-breaking-new-ground [ Why the new Waveney Valley constituency is a top Green target ]
matt_outandabout
Full Member
Please will someone go and set up a squatters encampment on Farage’s lawn. They can then suggest he negotiates away half his land to them…FFS.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/26/farage-urges-zelenskiy-to-seek-ukraine-peace-deal-with-russia
It's pretty incredible that some of his supporters see him as the reincarnation of Churchill, when Churchill would have be appalled at his stance on Ukraine.
Whilst I have been waiting for a steer on how to vote out Cruella in my constituency, that Electoral Calculus polling suggests she will lose ~ to Reform!
How anyone can think she’s not right wing enough for me….
vd
Full Member
Whilst I have been waiting for a steer on how to vote out Cruella in my constituency, that Electoral Calculus polling suggests she will lose ~ to Reform!How anyone can think she’s not right wing enough for me….
That also put you in a moral quandary! ☹️
With one exception only, I have always voted anti-Tory. I resisted the urge to tactical vote when living in Kent, because I thought the Tory was decent, and the Liberal was Bill Pitt, the idiot who won a Croydon by election.
That ‘decent’ Tory ended up serving at Her Majesty’s Pleasure- Jonathan Aitken- although I understand he’s now a prison chaplain and considered a changed man, so maybe I understood him better than he did….?
I think I’d rather take my chance and hope 3rd place Labour squeeze the Libdem vote.
They are offering more of the same with a bit of compassion
That'll do as a starter for ten. Who else do you think can put together a competent government?
The UK is the worlds 6th largest economy
So why is it so shit? Maybe because GDP per capita is about 30th. Or because our incompetent government hasn't put the money to use where it should be.
I'm very lucky. Retired, homeowner, out in the leafy suburbs, can afford to put decent food on the table. Many, far too many, are struggling to make ends meet. That to me is not a good indicator of a civilised nation. High GDP or not.
Plug this Electoral Calculus figures into the FT seat predictor and you get this:
...and that's 6 seats for Reform.
Not only is there a very large spread of percentages in the polls but also in seats resulting from those percentages.
FT's own seat prediction is
matt_outandabout
Full Member
Can I just check – this is suggesting Lib Dem as opposition?
Wow.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html < It’s possible but depends upon which column turns out to be the more accurate. Large margin of error.
There's an interesting thread on twitter about Tory poll numbers, basically sub 25% the collapse in seat numbers accelerates, and a small percentage shift will have a disproportionate change in seats. The same is true for other parties in the opposite direction, hence the lib dem 2nd place projection in some polls. In other words, small change equal big effect at the sub 25% vote share. FPTP weirdness!
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1805937821397524747?t=KlpMN3jpzbYcYmCqhCnDLg&s=19
I’m totally lost, politically homeless with what is on offer. I cannot believe that these are considered the political elite of this country. I still have no idea who to vote for.
Labour - Pretending not to be socialists, but will reveal their true colours and will come for everything they can from you. Very little business acumen and most of the leadership team come from public sector careers so don’t understand how money, business and finance works. Look at the vast majority of Labour run local councils (which are one step away from bankruptcy) then imagine that incompetence on a national level. Frightening. I cannot imagine anyone on the world stage taking Angela Rayner and Kier Starker seriously. Can you imagine him actually standing up to anyone? I also have a fear that they will bankrupt the country in the name of net zero.
Tory - Well it hasn’t been great has it. Cameron took us out of the EU, taxes are absurdly high whilst simultaneously providing crap public services. HS2 would have been great for the North, instead it goes to Birmingham and the North are left with laughable transport. Boris, Liz, Rishi, lies, scandal, incompetence etc etc. They do need to go.
Reform - the low tax pledge is appealing as a business owner. Farage though - Brexit and then promptly resigned. They seem to be listening to peoples concerns about ILLEGAL immigration. They're manifesto doesn't stack up at all.
Greens - mean well, but clueless. A wasted vote.
Lib Dems - Are they still going?
I consider myself to be centre right and a firm believer in traditional conservative values. Completely lost as to who gets my vote as I don’t believe any of the offerings will be good for the country. Tragic really.
Several problems here. Firstly as a self described Blairite its rather easy for you to take this line considering what is being offered is new labour mk2. So no need to adjust your own dogma which leads on to the second problem
Is it dogma or pragmatism tho...show me a government that has objectively made more difference for the underprivileged, for kids, for the NHS etc. Blair made a difference.
You can diss me for that if want, but show me a real alternative on July 4....
My grandparents were miners in the valleys, and made a difference by clubbing together for libraries and healthcare. Aneurin Bevan built on that thinking.
I bought my copy of Das Kapital from the party bookshop on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin in 1986. How did that work out for the Eastern Europeans? Fenced in cos the dogma was flawed.
So dream on that you want a different way of doing things....none of us will get the perfect outcome on July 5, but I know which imperfect outcome I'd like when compared to the Tory alternative.
As poopscoop said up thread, we're probably all broadly on the same side (SRAM vs Hope vs Shimano debates aside), so let's try and work towards the best outcome for the country on July 5. I'm not sure how I'd cope with a tory MP.
Pretending not to be socialists, but will reveal their true colours and will come for everything they can from you.
You what? Have you been listening to anything that's been going on?
Look at the vast majority of Labour run local councils (which are one step away from bankruptcy) then imagine that incompetence on a national level. Frightening.
Ok so 1) councils have nothing to do with the parliamentary party. They're different people, doing different things, run by different people and 2) The reason councils are going bankrupt is because the central Tory government isn't giving them enough money (not all council's money comes from council tax).
I also have a fear that they will bankrupt the country in the name of net zero.
Net Zero means a shitload of investment is needed in alternative technologies. A competent government would attempt to make sure that we are making the stuff that the world needs to reach it - like the USA is doing. It also means loads of solar and wind power which conveniently is sourced here in the UK not in the Middle East or Russia.
Look at the vast majority of Labour run local councils (which are one step away from bankruptcy)
Tory, labour and no doubt councils of other persuasions are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Our Labour council is almost bankrupt... just as it was when It was Tory led last year. It's a central funding issue, it's well documented and directly resulting from Tory austerity.
airvent
Free Member
Are there people shouting in the background of this debate?
Yes, a demo outside but I don't know who?
Lib Dems – Are they still going?
Given that they seem to be having their best election campaign in years, yes. But with limited party resource and some areas where there's not much presence, unless you're in a target seat you might not have noticed.
Very little business acumen and most of the leadership team come from public sector careers so don’t understand how money, business and finance works
Starnmer - barrister and director of public prosecutions
Reeves - worked for the BoE and HBoS
Lammy - barrister and attorney in the US
Thats the 3 top jobs in government covered
Can I just point out that both candidates answered a question about this country being an island and neither mentioned the fact that the UK is not an island, and we have a long unguarded border with Ireland...?
Pro Palestinian apparently.
Good.
Sunak is going to throw a disc in his neck if he keeps on doing the odd Delboy head butting motion.😁
show me a government that has objectively made more difference for the underprivileged, for kids, for the NHS etc. Blair made a difference
You're not allowed to point out the bleeding obvious.
What you have to do is shout IRAQ!!! then soil your petticoats in righteous outrage
… and apparently that immediately cancels out all of that progress, then you go misty-eyed about Jeremy Corbyn and enter the insane tinfoil-helmeted hinterland where 2 electoral defeats are miles better than 3 electoral victories because…. erm… I don’t know… idealogical purity or some other bollocks that trumps everything if you live in Islington
Welcome to their petition-signing, placard-waving, cloud-cuckoo-land of ‘The Left’
Get anything done? Actually take on the responsibility of government? Of course not! Are you mad?
We’re all planning a protest March about Palestine, then we can post it on Instagram and see how many likes we get
EU folk are not going to come here without freedom of movement so thats not going to happen either
People have to want to come here first.
There is absolutely no problem with attracting people to come to the UK after Brexit. Immigration (legal and illegal) has grown massively since B Day. If you specifically want EU citizens rather than non-EU citizens...why?
I understand he’s now a prison chaplain and considered a changed man
Jonathan Aitken's spots didn't change.
Look at the vast majority of Labour run local councils (which are one step away from bankruptcy)
Pretty much every council in the country is on the edge of the same precipice, regardless of the party in control, regardless of the well-reported more generous central funding for Tory-led councils than Labour ones.
Ooooowwwwww! Meeeooowwww!
"I'm sure BBC verify will put that quote on their website!"
I'm watching it with my mum at the moment, she's late 60's, just back from a hike up the Merrick and a fit, feisty highlander.
According to her she'd grab Sunak by the ** and * squeeze till he **** bursts
And she doesn't like nor trust Starmer one bit.....plus a few other choice words for them both so far.
We’re all planning a protest March about Palestine, then we can post it on Instagram and see how many likes we get
Your posts are rather patronising,
Nearly one in 10 English councils expect to go bust in next year, survey finds.
I worry for Sunak.
I'm in Salisbury - Tory heartland but genuinely looked like a 3 horse race here.
**** me dead, can't believe I'm saying this but why can't Reform be more competent.
In the first hustings the Reform candidate not only concurred with Farage on Russia but admitted meeting Putin and declared him a decent bloke! Not the most popular message in the constituency where a chemical weapon attack was carried out by his government.
If you specifically want EU citizens rather than non-EU citizens…why?
Why - because in general they are young and enthusiastic and single and go home after a couple of years - wheras non EU migrants settle here and bring families. also non EU migrants are not going to come here for gap years which is what a ;lot of the hospitality industry relied on. Basically you get a much higher % of workers to dependents
gross generalisation of course
Binners – normally i appreciate your posts, but you are coming across as a **** tonight. Take a break please, go spend some time outside or something
Strangely....I think Binners is spot on
I did take some time outside, glorious evening in Sussex, thinking that I am feeling a bit hopeful for the first time in 8 years....and really really hoping we don't wake up on the 5th thinking if only....
In the first hustings the Reform candidate not only concurred with Farage on Russia but admitted meeting Putin and declared him a decent bloke!
I was reading about him only 30 odd minutes ago. What a piece if work, eh?
Farage has made a rod for his own back here. The slippery **** might not outrun this one.
Why – because in general they are young and enthusiastic and single and go home after a couple of years – wheras non EU migrants settle here and bring families.
I am not sure this stereotype actually matches with the reality of EU or non-EU immigration.
International students and their dependants accounted for a further 39% of the increase in non-EU immigration. The UK has an explicit strategy of increasing and diversifying foreign student recruitment, and it is also likely that the reintroduction of post-study work rights post-Brexit made the UK more attractive to international students.
Sunak really is an irksome little shit. I saw him on TV before the 2019 election and thought the exact same then.
Brexit and a set of unbelievable circumstances have delivered him to No.10
He has zero class, is not a statesman and will hopefully be under investigation soon for his negligent Chancellor stint during COVID.
My county council is conservative and most MPs in the county are Tories. The council is on the verge of bankruptcy- due to central funding cuts.
How many in the government are from a business background? As mentioned before in the thread, Sunak’s hedge fund was responsible for RBS paying over the odds for ABN AMRO and look what happened to RBS.
Poopscoop
Full Member
I had to chuckle when Sunak talked about his girls growing up in the UK…
"As a dad of two daughters..." 🤮 Didn't like how Starmer allowed himself to get caught up bickering with Sunak though.
Interesting bit of trivia about Starmer, though, don't know if anyone picked it up: apparently his dad was a toolmaker...?
This young question-asker on TV is just completely wrong. Grad unemployment isn't astronomical. It's total rubbish.
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/insights-and-analysis/what-did-graduates-do-after-higher
How many in the government are from a business background?
Who cares? Government and business are different.
colournoise
Full Member
Anyone bored of the new ‘no surrender’ slogan already?
Lol indeed but I've also learned, again, that Sunak is very, very angry about the betting, very very angry. Not angry enough to do anything for over a week mind you but still... Very, very angry.
After his performance tonight, I think he's angry in general and needs a valium up the pooper!
Binners – normally i appreciate your posts, but you are coming across as a **** tonight. Take a break please, go spend some time outside or something
Be careful what you say to binners. I got a mod warning for saying mean things about him earlier.
Be careful what you say to binners. I got a mod warning for saying mean things about him earlier.
Ah, that's because recycling memes about left of centre folk is a protected characteristic.
Poorer areas tend to elect Labour councils. People in poorer areas rely more heavily on local services, so these councils have more spending commitments. It's not rocket science to work out why so many Labour councils are on the edge of the cliff.
And that's before you examine the record of a PM who bragged about diverting funding from poor areas to wealthier ones.
The man is a worm, a lowlife.
He is in fact a Hi Risk Anus.
I look forward to Sunak’s comments on women, and being a father as his motivation for putting them first, coming back to haunt him when his two daughters finish their private American education.
no surrender
What? copied from the rev Ian Paisley?
It is being reported that Sir Philip Davies bet £8k he would lose his seat. His defenestration by his electorate is on my Portillo Moment wishlist.
Is it dogma or pragmatism tho…
Why is it the blairites also announce their courting of the right as pragmatism rather than accepting they are dogmatic.
show me a government that has objectively made more difference for the underprivileged, for kids, for the NHS etc. Blair made a difference.
Well I would rate the ones after WWII and probably through to the 70s as being more effective. If we go back further then the education acts of the 1850s also rate highly.
An obvious difference with Blair is that new labour actually offered a bit to the left rather than just shouting about "WHO ELSE WILL YOU VOTE FOR" Not a lot and they let their dogma about markets wreck the NHS reforms and bedded in most of the hard right ideals but yes they did a bit. The problem is did you not notice how far the spectrum shifted to the right thanks to their continuing of tory policies and how easily the good stuff was rolled back?
Ultimately though labour carried on many of the policies which the thatcherites started which is why our country is in such a shit state now. They have all been pissing money up against the wall and destroying and giving away state assets in the name of dogma.
You can diss me for that if want, but show me a real alternative on July 4….
See the problem? You cant actually offer anything beyond a "who else will you vote for". Currently Starmer is offering lots to the centre right whilst nothing to anyone else. Hence all the spiel about having changed the party and how its nothing like that nasty one people voted for in 2019. Which is of course his choice but does raise the question why should people who voted labour then vote labour now.
My grandparents were miners in the valleys, and made a difference by clubbing together for libraries and healthcare. Aneurin Bevan built on that thinking.
Yes he did. Now the relevance of this to Starmer?
I bought my copy of Das Kapital from the party bookshop on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin in 1986. How did that work out for the Eastern Europeans? Fenced in cos the dogma was flawed.
I have no idea what you are trying to argue here. Aside from the obvious one if you ignore the majority of the population to satisfy a minority then its likely to end in tears? Or that when in doubt the "moderates" generally align with the hard right?
So dream on that you want a different way of doing things….none of us will get the perfect outcome on July 5, but I know which imperfect outcome I’d like when compared to the Tory alternative.
One that is pretty close to what you want anyway?
The main issue for me despite likelihood of voting labour to get a specific tory out is this will be taken as support for Starmer. We will then have likes of binner spewing out their hatred towards anyone vaguely left wing and we will get the doubling down on policies which only appeal to the right which, given the tories will have moved right, will shift the spectrum even further rightwards
I don't recall either said anything really of any substance about defence (I guess they weren't asked about it either though...).
Surely that would be a major vote winner given the global situation that's developing.
Diss, I guess what i was trying to say was that despite having a some experiences of socialism, some of it pragmatic, some dogmatic, looking at different perspectives of what that might look like, we still have to work within what is achievable. My sense is that pragmatism is a better way to do things than dogma....hence Blair doing some really positive things for disadvantaged communities.
But you haven't answered the question what is the alternative for me on July 4?
Ah, that’s because recycling memes about left of centre folk is a protected characteristic.
I think of him as this places reform candidate. Incapable of a sensible argument and just projecting all their own failings onto others.
Defence costs money - lots and lots of it. Many many many schools and hospitals worth. Its not a vote winner because like many things in life, inexplicably the actual people who make the difference in these situations (inhabitants of Clacton, i'm looking at you) are idiots and can't begin to understand the nuanced arguments behind complicated zero sum decisions.
Andy Verity - financial journalist at the BBC is really nailing it for me on x.
https://twitter.com/andyverity/status/1806065309989630135?t=KmJn8GWfdOQudZb67b_rew&s=19
"Oh dear. 'The money isn't there. The money's been spent. Your own chancellor said that' (Starmer). When you're referring to the public finances in fiat currency economy, 'the money isn't there' is as economically illiterate as it was when Liam Byrne left his jokey note in 2010."
https://twitter.com/andyverity/status/1806064698040730004?t=TISlrlj3goehiNnHw1ZAcw&s=19
We need to get beyond this terrible level of debate.
It's bloody awful and not a shred of truth is being told about public finances.
Both idiots going on about us being bankrupt back in in 2010...
I think of him as this places reform candidate. Incapable of a sensible argument and just projecting all their own failings onto others.
I expect, and hope, he doesn’t give a shit how you think of him. Why all this personal stuff?
Very little business acumen and most of the leadership team come from public sector careers so don’t understand how money, business and finance works
There was more widespread financial knowledge and understanding in the public sector organisations I worked in before the current private sector one I'm in. We were a lot better at procurement too. There's this fallacy that the pubic sector doesn't know how to manage money.
But Diss, what is the alternative for me on July 4?
As a Blairite Labour seem relatively well suited to you. I say relatively since as the compass think tank/pressure group have found Starmers labour isnt exactly welcoming to any form of dissent.
Now care to put the argument for voting labour for anyone left of centre without using "otherwise its the tories".
Point of order dissonance - working in the NHS during the blair years it got a LOT better in terms of what happened on the ground
Was that the NHS in Scotland or the one in England, TJ? I thought that all of your experience was in the former.
I expect, and hope, he doesn’t give a shit how you think of him. Why all this personal stuff?
Have you read the shit he spewed on the last page? He is someone who hurls childish abuse and memes left, right and ****ing centre.
Have a read of this shite
What you have to do is shout IRAQ!!! then soil your petticoats in righteous outrage
… and apparently that immediately cancels out all of that progress, then you go misty-eyed about Jeremy Corbyn and enter the insane tinfoil-helmeted hinterland where 2 electoral defeats are miles better than 3 electoral victories because…. erm… I don’t know… idealogical purity or some other bollocks that trumps everything if you live in Islington
Welcome to their petition-signing, placard-waving, cloud-cuckoo-land of ‘The Left’
Of course you might agree with it but then you would be a bit hypocritical talking about "this personal stuff".
Whoever suggested earlier that Labours shadow front bench don't have business experience should listen to the podcast 'Leading' where Rachel Reeves (shadow chancellor) was interviewed.
She came across as very much on top of her potential brief, a centre left socialist and more than a match for Rory Stewart!
There’s this fallacy that the pubic sector doesn’t know how to manage money.
I do wonder how often its to do with people working in small private sector companies and then seeing the inevitable inefficiencies in a large public sector organisation and confusing that with "public sector" bad whilst missing that large private sector companies can be equally incompetent and at risk of empire building.
Another example is how the public sector are crap at IT projects. Leaving aside the obvious point they are generally contracted out to the private sector it misses the other detail that we hear about the public sector failures because there is generally some reporting responsibility. Whereas most of the private sector ones are brushed under the carpet unless they are spectacularly bad and/or obviously client facing (aka some of the bank failures). The sad fact is we are still pretty shit at large IT projects regardless of which sector its in.
Using the private sector to deliver something that ought to be done by the state (water as a good pragmatic example) - and adding layer of needed profit, is by definition an inefficiency.
People like Starmer can't get this stuff in their heads. Centrists have based economic policy on failed Conservative policy without scrutiny.
Hence Labour's fiscal rules being similar to the Tories.
Frankly, I'm embarrassed at the level of understanding that Labour have taken over many issues. I mean you can't spend all your Centrist time attacking the Tories and then slavishly copying their policy.
But we will see soon enough. We can at least stop talking about the Tories for a bit.
Leaving aside the obvious point they are generally contracted out to the private sector
I mean..... that's a hell of an omission when comparing the private and public sectors 😳