Labour need something positive for folk to vote for

Let’s hope they are keeping their powder dry & actually waiting for an election campaign before saying what they will do.
Otherwise the way this govt are they’ll either steal their ideas & call them their own or **** up their plans by cutting what taxes they might use to raise money to pay for their plans.

Ah, so it’s the private limo squadron…at least Rishi can give them some useful tips on countering blue-on-blue strikes… (sorry/notsorry)

Problem with that is that the labour vote is very soft thus easily diverted to other parties. Labour need something positive for folk to vote for to firm up their vote especially in areas where there is alternative leftish parties to vote for.

True in Scotland maybe.

But I don’t believe the middle/swing voters are really swinging left/right each election, they’re not ideological, they’re just voting for whoever they think will do best in the economy, or in their own self interests. Which is why SNP support is falling, nothing to do with independence, just people asking the question “what’s best for me for the next 5 years”.

(speaking in general statistical terms, not individuals).

I’m not hugely against that philosophy. Economics is complicated. It’s easy to say things like “why do lifetime ISA limits penalize people living in/around London? Why not abolish them?”. Which is fine on paper, but Hunt apparently looked into it and determined that housing didn’t need another influx of cash, which is probably also very true. A 100% ideological politician would be a disaster (the last 14 years has taught us that). IMO I’ll vote for people who share my ideals, but are also restrained enough to apply them secondary to dealing with reality.

Let’s hope they are keeping their powder dry & actually waiting for an election campaign before saying what they will do.
Otherwise the way this govt are they’ll either steal their ideas & call them their own or **** up their plans by cutting what taxes they might use to raise money to pay for their plans.

Valid point I think.

So a whole 24hrs with Sunak making a cockup – looks like his next one is due at 17:00 when he meets Graham Brady.

So a whole 24hrs with Sunak making a cockup

Don’t hold your breath. Next thing up is the vote on Rishi’s completely unworkable (scrawled on the back of a fag packet?) policy for banning smoking.

Mad Lizzie is presently fermenting libertarian outrage at the idea of teenagers being prevented from killing themselves with B&H and the headbangers are all screaming ‘nanny state’ while probably taking huge donations from Big Tobaccco Inc. He’s got a massive rebellion on his hands anyway which means he can only get it through with opposition help, who’ll probably abstain

It’s a free vote for Tories, so a good chance of lots of rebels… if you can call them that… pointless of them though because they can’t defeat it.

So they’re all fighting like rats in a sack at the 1922 Committee, with number 10 staff briefing against the alleged plotters, and them all briefing against him

Meanwhile the Lords have shredded the Rwanda bill again, proving Rishi’s hopeless lack of political nouse in choosing that particularly stupid and unworkable hill to die on

I mean how maddening of them to insist on the UK government comply with international law? These people are sure to be labelled extremists under Goveys new definition

Tinas.  I fear that the lib dems willbe the beneficiaries of thevlackof enthusiasm for labour allowing Tories to win by splitting the anti Tory vote and that labour  voters will stay home or vote for fringe parties as a protest  like rochdale

I think a small majority or just short of one is the likely outcome

Yougov latest has reform not far off overtaking the Tories on vote share

CON 19 (-1)
LAB 44 (=)
LIB DEM 9 (=)
REF UK 15 (+1)
GRN 8 (+1)

Fieldwork 19 – 20 March

I do wonder if we are going to see a repeat of the MAGAfication of the GOP: Tories becoming UKIP, with Farage as leader

whats worrying is that despite economic figures in America we’d love here, Trump stands a good chance of beating Biden, culture war trumps economy and in fact reality is worrying

I do wonder if we are going to see a repeat of the MAGAfication of the GOP: Tories becoming UKIP, with Farage as leader

It’s an inevitability, the only question is whether somehow it happens before the election with Reform doing a grubby deal, or after it with Tice and Farage picking over the carcass. A lot depends on whether Farage can pick up a seat somehow, but the Tories would have to stand down a candidate as part of a deal to allow that to happen.

And it’s not the Tories becoming UKIP, it’s morphed into something nastier even than that.

seems Mel Stride has found a new way to label “lazy scroungers” 😕

If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94% of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever.

I do wonder if we are going to see a repeat of the MAGAfication of the GOP: Tories becoming UKIP, with Farage as leader

I’d say we’re there already, in that the present Tory party is now more extreme in its toxic nationalism than UKIP was in 2016. But Reform are moving even further to the right into genuinelly dangerous territory and the Tories are willingly following them there, being led by the nose. When he gets into detail, Tice is terrifying. A full blown fascist thug in a suit, getting airtime and a worrying level of support

whats worrying is that despite economic figures in America we’d love here, Trump stands a good chance of beating Biden, culture war trumps economy and in fact reality is worrying

Did you see Armando Iannucci on Peston last night? He was confirming what we all know… that Trump and Johnson and the brains behind them (Cummings et al) figured out that in the social media age, people don’t want to read long, boring, uncomfortable facts, they want quick, snappy ‘answers’ delivcered to them in a soundbite by game show hosts. We’ve had governemnt by 3 word slogan for the past 8 years and look where its got us.

You’d like to think that with ‘Stop The Boats’ just not getting any traction (with anyone other than Sun-reading Taxi drivers), despite endless repetition, we may be coming to the end of that. I doubt it though. Rishi’s team are just rubbish at 3 word slogans

I think Trump winning the election is now a given. Fox News, X/Twitter and the like have turned America into La-La-Land where tinfoil-helmeted conspiracy theories beat facts every time. Obviously GB News and co are keen to repeat the exercise here

whats worrying is that despite economic figures in America we’d love here, Trump stands a good chance of beating Biden, culture war trumps economy and in fact reality is worrying

Just because the economy is doing well, doesn’t mean that the people working in that economy are. There is still a massive cost of living crisis in the US, inflating the markets and increasing gdp isn’t filtering down to the majority who are still struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.

whats worrying is that despite economic figures in America we’d love here, Trump stands a good chance of beating Biden, culture war trumps economy and in fact reality is worrying

Yes this is an interesting dichotomy.

I believe some if is because the Republicans are really good at talking up the national ‘debt’ against all the good economic data, despite the fact the Republican’s don’t give a toss about national debt unless it’s the democrats spending.

Whoever makes the consistently noisiest poor quality arguments wins every time.

Tinas. I fear that the lib dems willbe the beneficiaries of thevlackof enthusiasm for labour allowing Tories to win by splitting the anti Tory vote and that labour voters will stay home or vote for fringe parties as a protest like rochdale

In Rochdale neither of the main parties put up / backed a candidate. Galloway 2nd place was a complete unknown independent.

I realize polls have a margin for error, but there’s 25points between the conservatives and Labour, it would take some spectacular apathy on Labours part to lose that due to turnout. Especially when it feels like everyone is so angry about pretty much everything the government touches at the moment. IMO that “44%” Labour share is their core, plus just about every middle ground floating voter in the country that isn’t in a fairly safe lib dem / SNP seat.

Even the RW press seem to be abandoning the current Tories, they know what side their bread is buttered so won’t endorse Reform, but even Murdoch seems to have realized he’ll make more money under a more left than he’d like government, than a perpetually collapsing right.

At the risk of sounding like a football chant, there’s only one George Galloway, I think that like Farage and UKIP they’ll struggle to replicate that support for a local nutter. And even less so in marginal seats. Reform will be a ~10% also-ran in a lot of seats, stealing a lot of tory votes and a hadfull of Labour ones.

Labour’s biggest risk at the moment is Stephen Flynn playing politics and desperately trying to trip them up every week. I know it’s in his parties interest north of the border to make it a competition with Labour but I think if Labour do lose seats to Galloway it’ll be Flynn’s doing over things like the Gaza vote.

“seems Mel Stride has found a new way to label “lazy scroungers” 😕

If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94% of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever.”

As someone who’s been through that process, twice, that’s really not how it happens, but hey, I’m a lazy scrounger, rather than a public sector worker ground down by their inane policies and cuts.

Just because the economy is doing well, doesn’t mean that the people working in that economy are. There is still a massive cost of living crisis in the US, inflating the markets and increasing gdp isn’t filtering down to the majority who are still struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.

And do you believe these people will be better off under Trump and the Republicans?

No… but the weapon is to promise to make life worse for others… immigrants being the most obvious. The same happens here… just with what sounds like more reasonable tone coming from English accented mouths.

Just because the economy is doing well, doesn’t mean that the people working in that economy are. There is still a massive cost of living crisis in the US, inflating the markets and increasing gdp isn’t filtering down to the majority who are still struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.

its a rich country full of poor people. we are headed the same way.

We had a Reform flyer through the door yesterday & it terrified me.

The content & how professional it looked. When I’ve seen them before they were a bit amateur hour. Not anymore. They are in my opinion extremely dangerous. Offering easy solutions to complicated problems & vouchers for the NHS.

They’ve learned from the success of their NHS video (the one that showed two timelines, an overstretched NHS and one running smoothly) and social media messaging in 2016… it worked… I know people who “voted for the NHS” on the back of Tice&Farrage’s campaign… even though both of them have made it very clear in the past that they want to change the NHS to a private insurance model.

The content & how professional it looked.

They’re well funded, though obviously being a limited company and not actually a political party, we will never know by whom or whereabouts in Moscow they live

So if they’re a company and not a political company why are they allowed to run?

Coke and Nike don’t…

its a rich country full of poor people. we are headed the same way.

That ship has sailed, even worse we’re a country getting less rich and with increasingly more poor people

So if they’re a company and not a political company why are they allowed to run?

Coke and Nike don’t…

They’ve found one the many loopholes in our terribly managed political funding model

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/mar/21/mental-health-culture-gone-too-far-work-pensions-secretary-mel-stride-waspi-womens-pensions-conservatives-labour-uk-politics-latest-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-65fc23568f0874ddc2053fd7#block-65fc23568f0874ddc2053fd7

The Tory candidate for mayor in Manchester has just defected to reform

To be fair to him who is going to get the right wing vote in the Manchester Mayoral elections – the Tories or Reform –  is the ultimate example of two bald blokes fighting over a comb

It is hilarious though, especially this close to polling day. Will the Tories still have time to enter a candidate or will it be like Labour in Rochdale?

That will be absolutely priceless if there isn’t actually a Tory candidate at all 😀

I think Trump winning the election is now a given.

I’ll take that bet. I don’t think Trump’s anything like nailed on. He consistently scores very low on Republican women, young voters, and college educated voters.  All his primary victories have had significant percentages voting against him, sometimes as much as 40% of the vote. in the Primaries.  The reversal of Roe vs Wade has meant that in every subsequent defeat the Republicans have suffered, reproductive rights are at the top of the reasons, even in the Republican states that enjoy significant evangelical support. The age of Biden is becoming less of an issue as it becomes more of an issue for Trump, as people realise he just talks gibberish (when he’s not threatening violence) and the fact that he’s soon going to have to pay (or have seized, or declare bankruptcy) nearly half a billion dollars is going to put a massive dent in his pocket and his shine.

I think it’ll be close, but he’s already laying the ground work for “it was stolen from me again” at his rallies.

If there is time for a new Reform candidate to go on the ballot, there’s time to put another Conservative one on there. Of course, they need to be careful who they pick, in a rush… that replacement candidate could defect after the deadline.

I’ve just listened to the interview with Dan Baker and he basically repeated what the Guardian were reporting a few weeks ago.

They said that Sunak has already concluded that all the ‘Red Wall’ seats are as good as gone already so theres no point putting any resources into even pretending to seriously fight them. Instead. they’re going to entrench themselves in their South East Home Counties heartlands, where presumably they’ll be fighting it out with Reform on the right and the Lib Dems on the non-mental front

My elections predictions: June if the May council elections aren’t totally and utterly disastrous, or October otherwise, as the security service are warning against a November election, and I think even this bunch of Tories wouldn’t risk it.

Of those two, I reckon June, the weather’s nice, not everyone has left the country for holidays and they won’t want to disrupt conference season as that’s where all the money comes from, and the Tories will need all the money they can get.

Surely… the Conservatives will want to get all the money they can BEFORE an election?

And a febrile online/socialmedia landscape could shake things up for them.

I think November is still possible.

I think early November is out obviously, so late November?…start planning in September when parliament is sitting again after the summer break without knowing the outcome of the US election? I mean, OK, but that means no conferences in October…Where’s the money coming from?

Rishi is a bottler. He’ll bottle it again and again as the polls get worse and worse and we’ll finally go to the polls at Christmas

as the security service are warning against a November election

Is there a reason for this?

Same time as the US election

2 major nato powers being in transition at the same time, whilst Russia is sabre rattling.

We are not a major power in any way

I think early November is out obviously, so late November?…start planning in September when parliament is sitting again after the summer break without knowing the outcome of the US election? I mean, OK, but that means no conferences in October…Where’s the money coming from?

The annual winter flu crisis will be in full flow by late November

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-providers-patients-england-healthcare-safety-investigation-branch-covid-b2411217.html

I think late october with truncated conferences , if not then itll be end of Jan!