UK Election!

It was Blair himself that u-turned. He promised no tuition fees. Just before the manifesto was published.

How many manifesto claims (from any party) have actually been enacted in full and in the manner intended?

It’s got worse recently but everything now is either a pack of lies or it’s like someone’s created a Prime Minister’s Lucky Dip jar to the question “what would you do if you were PM?”

Today I would…[rummage in jar]…make sure that Premier League games are on free to air TV! (the latest Lib Dem one).

Ummm… OK, lay out to me your actual workable plan for that. Broad strokes, don’t need the full details yet but how? And why? And what are your metrics for success and achievements?

Claim after claim which can’t be backed up, probably can’t be achieved anyway or which – even if it could be achieved – is irrelevant. Or which can simply be forgotten about or binned off with an “ah well yes we did say that but it turns out we hadn’t actually looked into any of the details and we were in fact talking bollocks”

Welsh Labour got a huge majority in the Synnedd with clear manifesto pledges to introduce a nationwide 20 mph speed limit in urban areas and to create a new NE wales national park. Both have proven to be controversioal and extremely devisive.

Cameroon had a manifasto pledge to offer a referendum on EU membership. Look where seeing that one through got us.

I am not sure what point is being made here……. that it is reasonable for politicians to lie and make promises which they have no intention in keeping just to get elected?

Am I understanding this correctly?

No I’m saying the exact opposite.

Lies, impossible pledges, populism etc has taken over the whole election campaign (not just now but going back years).

Is it any wonder there’s such little trust in politicians now? For years they’ve promised all sorts of unicorns and delivered, at best, a donkey with a traffic cone on its head, at worst, nothing.

I want the election campaign to stop with the pointless promises and the
We’ll do XYZ
Ah but we’ll do XYZ bigger and better!
nonsense.

There really ought to be laws on this. Failure to deliver as promised. Might make politicians think a bit more about their promises in the first place.

No I’m saying the exact opposite.

Ah okay, it’s just that the comment directly before my post seemed to be complaining of promises which had been kept.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2289vk0n1o

The Tories said its plans – expected to costs £1bn per annum – would be paid for by cutting the number of NHS managers to pre-pandemic levels

The Tories are proposing (further) cutting back office staff to save NHS money. Because everyone knows things get more efficient when the consultant neurosurgeon has to order his/her own office supplies or negotiate the contract for theatre equipment maintenance.

Meanwhile,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn331vd99lzo

Starmer promises cut to net migration under Labour

Great, that won’t exacerbate any problems with the understaffed health and care sectors and agriculture, or for universities that are on the verge of bankruptcy already due to the drop in student visas and associated tuition fee income.

“We’ll do XYZ”

The response to that should be “why haven’t you been doing it for the last 14 years”?

I can’t help thinking Ed Davey is trolling.

I think this especially applies to the ‘we’re going to crack down on tax avoidance which will raise an additional 6 billion a year’, to which the only answer is ‘14 x 6 = the tax avoidance you’ve been happy to do absolutely nothing about until now’

You’d have to be pretty gullible to think they’d actually do that if re-elected, given that Rishi’s wife is one of the main culprit’s

There really ought to be laws on this. Failure to deliver as promised. Might make politicians think a bit more about their promises in the first place.

Now that would be a vote winner, they’d still have to do it though…

Edukator: you obviously object to university tuition fees. That’s fine. Lots of people do. But it is 100% untrue that, as you claimed:

In the 97 manifesto [Blair] promised not to introduce tuition fees but did so immediately after the election.

The 1997 manifesto did not say that. A normal person would just say “ahh, well, it was 25 years ago, I didn’t remember every bleeding line of the manifesto, fair enough”.

http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml

This whole discussion about whether parties keep their manifesto promises is completely irrelevant here.

This whole discussion about whether parties keep their manifesto promises is completely irrelevant here.

Eh, why ? Politicians not keeping their promises is one of the biggest concerns of voters, because if they don’t keep their promises voters don’t know what they are voting for.

There is a reason for the loss in confidence in politicians these days. And why New Labour dreamt up the “pledge card”.

https://x.com/faisalislam/status/543010936060391424

Saving money on the NHS = fiscal irresponsibility.

Got to laugh at the circle that we have created doesn’t ever seem to yield fruit.

I mean what’s it gonna take? 5 years more years of economic contraction?

I’m sympathetic to people who say they’re all the same – because material conditions are a failure for many.

It ain’t rocket science.

Meanwhile let’s head balls deep into an election with dismal economic planning.

“they are all the same” is a deliberate ploy to drive lower turnout numbers as that favours a certain party in the overall great scheme of things.

Will be loads of content hitting certain demographics with that message by fellow travellers.. including on here no doubt

There really ought to be laws on this. Failure to deliver as promised. Might make politicians think a bit more about their promises in the first place.
Now that would be a vote winner, they’d still have to do it though…

In theory, we don’t need this because if they don’t keep promises then they don’t get re-elected.

14 years, and counting……and 13 before that……and 11 before that…..

I think we need a law.

Will be loads of content hitting certain demographics with that message by fellow travellers.. including on here no doubt

It’s not really very inspiring though is it?  I and many others don’t like the stuff Starmer is saying.

So either we’re being asked to vote for stuff we don’t agree with or we’re being told he’s saying one thing to appeal to Tory voters but he’s going to do something else. Lying, basically.

Then we get told we’re basically Tory supporters.

Labour and labour supporters are making it very hard to want to have anything to do with the labour party

delivered, at best, a donkey with a traffic cone on its head

Quality! 🤣

“they are all the same” is a deliberate ploy to drive lower turnout numbers as that favours a certain party in the overall great scheme of things.

Will be loads of content hitting certain demographics with that message by fellow travellers.. including on here no doubt

That’s basically this thread.

The 1997 manifesto did not say that. A normal person would just say “ahh, well, it was 25 years ago, I didn’t remember every bleeding line of the manifesto, fair enough”.

http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml

This whole discussion about whether parties keep their manifesto promises is completely irrelevant here.

[“here”=student fees. And it was the Lib Dems who broke an actual manifesto commitment on these.]

Anyway , the old manifesto is worth a read/quick look. And then Lab went on to double spending on health as a proportion of the economy. And loads of other stuff I could list if anyone wants. All googleable.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/02/tory-candidate-robert-largan-social-media-ads-labour-reform-uk

My MP being a duplicitous **** – desperate to avoid portraying himself as a Big Bad Tory.

One things elections do is turn people you got along with and even considered friends into bitter enemies, both in real life and virtually.

It’s the European elections next week, between fleur de lys ties, rants about gens de voyage, populist right-wing bollocks, anti-European propaganda and rants about immigrants of which I’m one of four the (ageing) members of my MTB club have been on great form this weekend.

Have fun in thread, If by some miracle the promise of vote is kept it’ll be going to the LibDems. Thanks all for your contributions which have reminded me that on issues that matter to me both Labour and Conservative have screwed up the post-war vision, in slightly unequal measure, but they’ve both got us where we are now.

*closes election thread tab*

I still don’t get why Ed gets to vote in our national elections (as do many of my friends who haven’t lived in the UK for decades), but others that live, work and pay their taxes here do not. Well, I get it as in I understand the rules… it just seems plain wrong.

The pint-sized one was on a train again yesterday instead of his usual helicopter.

It was a steam train though(the replacement for HS2?), in our constituency and he was there to support his Tefal-headed deputy chairman of the Tory party and generally useless cockwomble James Daly

I’m quite mystified as to the resources they’re putting into this. Rishi has personally been here twice now and we’ve been getting constant (unbranded) Tory guff through the door for months. It’s always been a marginal seat (so hardly the Red Wall where he was reported to be heading) but old Rayner-hating, police-time-wasting Mekon-head has the smallest majority in the country and the last local polling I saw was predicting a 3 – 5,000 Labour majority

Look at the joy the little fella brought with him to an empty train so he didn’t bump into any of those frightful members of the public. Even planet-head looks like he wants him to **** off.

I still don’t get why Ed gets to vote in our national elections (as do many of my friends who haven’t lived in the UK for decades), but others that live, work and pay their taxes here do not. Well, I get it as in I understand the rules… it just seems plain wrong.

Because you guys voting in the way you did means we’re at risk of getting kicked out of our homes and forced to come back and live in the UK.

Like it or not, having a UK passport means you’re still very much affected by the decisions of the government no matter where you live.  In fact, in terms of life upheaval, we’re more affected.

If it’s any consolation we don’t get to vote for the government we pay our taxes to.

I’ve always reckoned that EU citizens should have the right to vote in the elections of where they are living (in the EU, obviously) regardless of what passport they hold.  Not that it’s really relevant anymore.

“It’s not really very inspiring though is it? I and many others don’t like the stuff Starmer is saying.”

It’s not like dating, you aren’t looking for the perfect individual you will spend the rest of your life with…you just need to choose which is the bus is most likely to be going vaguely in the direction you want to be heading towards

If you wait around for a bus going exactly where you want it to you’ll wait for a long time and it will get cancelled as no one else wants to get on it.

If you wait around for a bus going exactly where you want it to you’ll wait for a long time and it will get cancelled as no one else wants to get on it.

You pick the bus that’s going in the direction you want to go.  Not the one that is going in the opposite direction but slightly slower than the current one.

But what if the only two buses that actually have a chance of leaving the stop are both the same and going to the same place apart from one of the drivers being a bit less of a bastard than the other one?

Can we not at least lodge our dissatisfaction with that.

you aren’t looking for the perfect individual

And yet it would appear some individuals seem to think that Starmer is perfect, and they won’t tolerate any criticism of him.

In fact Starmer’s powers of always being right seem to have a strange magical mystical quality.

It turns out that Starmer can be completely right about a position that he has taken on something and then a month later, when he has preformed a complete U-turn and taken an opposite position, he is still completely right.

Go figure – it’s like some sort of  weird cult.

Disappointed no one went with “Hijack the bus” tbh

Let’s talk about buses doing u-turns then if you want the bus analogy.

Would you stay on a bus which kept preforming u-turns?

But what if the only two buses that actually have a chance of leaving the stop are both the same and going to the same place apart from one of the drivers being a bit less of a bastard than the other one?

Can we not at least lodge our dissatisfaction with that.

Let’s stretch this analogy to breaking point and beyond.

You put in a complaint form by voting for a candidate that isn’t going to win in your consistency.  By picking the one that most closely aligns with your views you indicate the direction you would like one of the busses to go in.

Next time the two busses are ready to leave you might find one of them is actually heading somewhat in the direction you’d like to go.

A relatively small number of people indicated they wanted a populist anti-EU bus and guess what!  Now the both busses are going where they want to go.

Can we stop talking about busses now?

And yet it would appear some individuals seem to think that Starmer is perfect, and they won’t tolerate any criticism of him.

LIke who?

And yet it would appear some individuals seem to think that Starmer is perfect, and they won’t tolerate any criticism of him.

In fact Starmer’s powers of always being right seem to have a strange magical mystical quality.

It turns out that Starmer can be completely right about a position that he has taken on something and then a month later, when he has preformed a complete U-turn and taken an opposite position, he is still completely right.

Go figure – it’s like some sort of  weird cult.

I don’t think i’ve really seen anyone on here praising Starmer all the time, most, and i include myself, see the first job for Labour is to actually get into power, it’s not all about Starmer, it’s about gaining the ability to actually implement policies and change, the leader for this could be Starmer, it would be Rayner, it could be Reeves, i couldn’t care, it just needs something progressive and not ingrained with the failure of the last few elections.

I just find it weird everything negative is centred around Starmer, as if he’s a one man band, he is no Blair, but even Blair needed support from his core party members back in 1997 to gain power, and hold it, if Labour win, Starmer will be PM, he might be in for a while, or out in 3 years, who knows, all i care about is moving our government and policies in a slightly different direction to start with, and work out what needs fixing, what doesn’t, etc, etc, like a government should.

My immediate requirement is to get the Tories out. In my constituency I can vote for my usual party and achieve the aim of unseating our current Tory MP. I’m quite confident of the result. However I’m a LibDem and I know the only party who have a hope of forming the next government is Labour. I’ll accept that. What happens afterwards we will have to wait and see.

I just find it weird everything negative is centred around Starmer

I guess it would be if it were true.

My immediate requirement is to get the Tories out.

Well the great news is that is certain to happen now. A Tory government after July 4th is becoming almost as unlikely as a LibDem government.

So that’s one thing less to worry about.

I think it’s pretty reasonable to give the person you are hoping is your best bet lots of scrutiny before you vote.

I mean no one here will likely be voting Sunak and yet he attracts heaps and heaps of minute by minute coverage.

Try that with Starmer and it’s – the usual suspects. Etc.

What’s wrong with taking stuff apart?

Starmer is a bloody fraud and has done very little to improve the situation as far as I can see.  I mean, he’s going to be stuck with the immigration issue by way of example and likely go in quite a Tory direction – and yet the screaming Liberals will simply ignore this. Yvette Cooper today calling the Tories current offering – ‘free-market’ immigration, that’s exactly what the EU was!

I think this stuff is fair game.

He told The Sun: “Read my lips – I will bring immigration numbers down”. He added: “I will control our borders”.

https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1796995438203023866?t=DjFarQHaZ1SgwxcXUc-MDA&s=19

It’s one of Labour’s top priorities apparently.

Yesterday he said wealth creation was his top priority. (Sky)

It’s impossible to believe anything.

The post refers to it being ‘…a top priority’ which is different to ‘the top priority’.

There is no contradiction.

Did I miss the reaction on here to the news that Diane Abbot is actually intending to stand as the Labour candidate? It’s almost as if the biggest issue of the election has suddenly assumed less importance now that it can’t be used to attack Starmer.