UK Election!

but from my point of view if you pay little you get little – labour really have to show good evidence people are getting VFM further down the line.

Maybe it was deemed too risky a strategy, but the Tories have left the country in such a state that Labour/Starmer had a real chance to offer a real vision of a better Britain/society to rebuild after the pandemic and economic shocks since, in a way that they did after WW2

Klunk post about Sunak getting more plants in his campaigning is interesting cos he’s never actually seen together with a cabinet colleague. Haven’t seen a pic of him together with Cameron or anyone else at D-day, or at any other time. Haven’t seen him with JHunt (not trying to evade the swear filter btw mods) or the health minister (who is that these days) or with mordaunt or shapps.

It’s like he’s a one man campaign and everyone’s afraid of getting a case of the clap

Understandable really when you consider how much the Torys have already hit them hard in the pocket.

but most people don’t see it- as the thresholds  have been frozen as pay goes up so does the tax disproportionately. All they are concerned about is the headline tax %.

Like the child benefit cap- that was £50k from day 1 and never moved until recently.

They have all these proposals to increase the limit and base it on household income, but it was pointed out at the time the inequality of it. Now after 11 years they are presenting it as a “Good Thing”.

It’s like he’s a one man campaign and everyone’s afraid of getting a case of the clap

It took until the second week of the campaign before any cabinet ministers put their head above the parapet. They’re all letting Rishi get on with it on his own. I can’t imagine why.

Rishi, hopeless narcissist that he is, also seems to favour a presidential style campaign that’s all about ME ME ME!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more delusional politician. He clearly thinks that he’s great at this politics lark and that he’s actually popular, despite all evidence to the contrary on both counts

I suppose that’s just what happens when you’ve lived your entire life as a little prince, in a bubble of unimaginable privilege,  during which you’ve never heard the word no and never been prevented from just doing whatever the hell you like with zero consequences.

seems Lil rishi going for the virtual fridge

Rishi Sunak’s heading to the North East on the campaign trail today, perhaps in the hope of talking less about D-Day and more about what he’d do as prime minister.

But we’ve been told he won’t be talking to us, the national media, and there will be no interviews. A possible “huddle” – when the PM takes a few questions from reporters off camera – has been cancelled. We’ve been told this is due to time pressure.

Was only a matter of time until he did a boris

Assuming the national media therefore don’t bother reporting it, what would be the point of him going to meet some dyed-in-the-wool, handpicked Tories? It’s not like he’s going to change any minds.

Assuming the national media therefore don’t bother reporting it, what would be the point of him going to meet some dyed-in-the-wool, handpicked Tories? It’s not like he’s going to change any minds.

Because national media is an increasingly irrelevant medium with which to spread your message. Social media is what matters these days. Tory HQ can still tweet pics of him looking “prime ministerial” whilst meeting respectful members of the public, workers, business leaders etc. Who are all in reality party people. I’ve been guilty of sneering at the poor deluded Russians who swallow this sort of stunt when Putin pulls it, and yet it here it is in a UK election campaign.  It’s cynical and dishonest but it seems to be the way of the world now. I wouldn’t be too uncertain that the other parties would do it too if they thought they could ‘manage the optics’ in that way without it being too obvious.

I don’t think there’s any conspiracy or infighting really because there is nothing left of the tories; 100 or more MPs leaving, theres no experienced heads. Rishi isn’t listening to anyone outside his circle but the last ones are all fighting solo because they want to replace rishi, if they can hang onto their constituency first…

They may be waiting until right at the death to come out en masse, but that will be too little too late, got to love watching them implode in real time :-)

The Times (so hardly a hostile publication) reported this morning that they’re having to bus these Tory stooges in from miles away for Rishi’s staged photoshoots.

Whats left of the usual pool of local Tory councillors are now so demoralised since being decimated at the local elections that none of them can be arsed

I’ve been guilty of sneering at the poor deluded Russians who swallow this sort of stunt when Putin pulls it,

There’s a lot of self-protection involved in self-delusion in Russia. Why get your knickers in a twist by suggesting that maybe Putin didn’t discover a Greek antiquity while scuba diving or didn’t fairly score the winning goal in every pro-am ice hockey match every year for the last 15 years…? What are you gonna do about it?

It took until the second week of the campaign before any cabinet ministers put their head above the parapet. They’re all letting Rishi get on with it on his own. I can’t imagine why.

Guardian mentioned this in passing. One suggestion is they are mostly busy fighting for their own seats and dont have the time to waste at a national level.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more delusional politician

Errr…. Liz Truss?

To be honest I just see the whole thing as a waste of time and money. Nothing will change as there isn’t the cash and people only want what suits them in the short term. All we get from all parties is a stack of half truths.  (Of course it is easier if you aren’t in power as all you have to do is say that the present incumbent is useless.) Why? Because we can’t fix life.

Guardian mentioned this in passing. One suggestion is they are mostly busy fighting for their own seats and dont have the time to waste at a national level.

There’s probably a lot of truth in that

Also, I’d imagine that if Rishi wants it to be all about him, which he clearly does, then nobody else is going to be too concerned about letting him get on with it.

Nobody wants to be too closely associated with someone who looks like leading the party to its worst ever defeat. Best keep your powder dry for the inevitable ‘rats in a sack’ leadership contest or looking for a new job

Penny Mordaunt looked absolutely delighted to be having to apologise for Rishi’s monumental **** up last night.

Her very presence in the debate had ‘contractual obligation’ stamped all over it. She’ll be one of those bald men fighting over a comb on July 5th if she manages to keep her seat, which looks very questionable at the moment

Errr…. Liz Truss?

Fair point. Possibly the most delusional human being who’s ever lived. Apparently the oversexed honey monster is even hinting at the idea of a return. But then I suppose he always is, desperate to be centre of attention

Our polling cards arrived in the post here this week. Receiving them it’s hard to ignore how it’s such a waste holding another election so soon after the last local elections. Given the Conservatives aren’t even apparently taking the election seriously, could they not have pulled the trigger on it sooner?

‘You cannot employ lesser qualified people instead of GPs…the country is not stupid’.

PM Rishi Sunak is challenged on the NHS by a member of the public during a campaigning event in Wiltshire.

Except the likes of Sunak DO think the country is stupid.

He thinks he is some kind of genius because he has got a few financial bets right, married into money and got to be PM (even if by default).

He’s also seen the UK electorate vote itself poorer in 2016 off the back of crude, three word slogans and nudge-nudge racism. He saw the UK electorate give Boris Johnson a 80 seat majority on the basis of obviously bullshit ‘policies’, hiding in a fridge and tucking Corbyn up over the TV debate. OK, so Labour also effectively threw that GE.

But the point is that Sunak does think the electorate is stupid and he is not entirely without justification in that belief.

Anyway – the Tories are toast. Hopefully out of government for at least a decade.

🙏🤞🙏🤞

Nothing will change as there isn’t the cash

There could be though – that’s the point.

Nothing will change because we repeatedly choose not to invest in change.

Nothing will change as there isn’t the cash

I just want a government that consists predominantly of sane people – not something that’s been the case for quite a while now – that  might actually address the countries issues rather than just relentlessly trying to **** us all by handing over all our taxes to their rich mates

You wouldn’t think that’s too much to ask, would you? But for the last 8 years I appear to have been living in a country that makes Italy under Berlesconi look like a bastion of democracy and sound economics

Nothing will change because people keep betting on the same two horses.

Let’s face it, Labour could literally do nothing or say nothing and people would still be telling us we have to vote for them because if you don’t you want the Tories to win.

That’s the arrogance that cost them Scotland and it’s the same arrogance that will cost them the rest of the UK if they don’t do anything with the next 5 years.

As long as people only vote against parties we’ll be stuck in the same stupid loop. Start voting for what you believe in and you might see change. Look what the SNP managed. Look what UKIP managed.

If ever there was a safe election to vote with your beliefs it’s this one.

don’t think I’ve ever seen a more delusional politician

He’s not a politician tho, not really, he’s only in it for personal gain, and some other unknown reasons. He’s never been there with public service in mind. It’s only ever been about self promotion, and any time he’s under pressure he has no political wiliness to get himself out of the merde. Just an awful person

Except the likes of Sunak DO think the country is stupid.

Well up until now people have voted for them so he has a point.  But even stupid people can see something is wrong after witnessing it for 14 years but they are still stupid enough to vote them back in again in 5 years time expecting a different result.

With regard to actual policies (such as they are in their present back-of-a-fag-packet iterations) I see  Rishi’s ‘Backing Drivers Plan’ as basically just giving themselves in Westminster yet more power to over-rule democratically elected devolved governments and local authorities about anything they don’t happen to like (which seems to encompass pretty much everything).

They seem very fond of that kind of thing. ‘Taking Back Control’ in action?

Ultimately it’s just further undermining democracy, removing peoples rights and centralising more power in the hands of fewer people (themselves) in the country that is already the most centralised in the developed world.

The usual libertarian right wing loons will love it, of course (why can’t I drive my 4×4 at 90mph everywhere? It’s my RIGHT!) but I can’t see it being much of a vote winner with anyone else

Richard Murphy

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c9xUlrrTqQk

Tend to agree.  But I do want them to have a decent majority

“Nothing will change because people keep betting on the same two horses” this is true, although FPTP means there are only ever two horses. If I was Starmer I’d be getting rid of it as well as the HoL ; and UBI with radical rebuild of taxation ; doing all the things that the Tories can’t unwind when they get back into power because they have no shame in terms of dismantling all the stuff that labour build like the NHS the mass transportation

Today Richi attended a local Fair near me(Great Ayton).He decided it was a good idea to have a go at ‘Splat the Rat’!😂He must want to lose.

I made the mistake of discussing the election with some of my Brexity-Tory colleagues. They are overwhelmingly going to vote for Reform as “they can be trusted to stop the immigrants “. When I asked about Reforms policies on the NHS, education, the economy,  defence etc., they couldn’t answer and just came back to stopping immigration. It seemed to be all they care about. Not bothered about the country falling apart, as long as they can stop foreigners from coming here. Depressing

Richard Murphy

I couldn’t agree less with him. Big majorities lead to bad government? So that presumably means that the 1997 Blair government was a bad government but that the 2010 Cameron government was a good government.

Which is obviously tosh. I must be one of Tony Blair’s smallest fan on here but I would not hesitate to claim that the lying austerity coalition government of David Cameron was worse than any Blair government.

And as for the claim that a huge majority would be “bad for Labour because there would be no one to hold it to account” that’s tosh too imho – Murphy himself provides the clue when he refers to backbenchers alledgedly causing trouble.

I don’t want opposition to a Starmer government to come from the Tory Party. The Tory Party has nothing to offer imo and no useful role to play in parliament. A Starmer government can be held accountable by the LibDems, the SNP, the Greens, independents, and yes of course Labour backbenchers that are not in the government.

It doesn’t require any input from the Tory Party in parliament, especially if it has been comprehensively rejected by the electorate.

To hope, and encourage, more of the electorate will vote Tory solely because you don’t want Labour to have a large majority is ridiculous.

I very much hope that as few as possible vote Tory and I will be quite frankly ecstatic if Labour end up with a 300 seat majority. It would represent a very healthy step forward in British politics.

I made the mistake of discussing the election with some of my Brexity-Tory colleagues.

I have a friend who did a complete career  change and moved into a care role. Not sure what it is exactly but it seems to involve helping people with autism, severe learning disabilities etc integrate into everyday society. She takes them shopping etc.

Since taking the job she’s switched to voting Tory “because of all the benefits these people get” and she’s sure the Tories will cut back on them. She thinks Sunak is a lovely man and exactly what we need. I’ve given up trying to reason with her.

FPTP means there are only ever two horses.

That’s incorrect.

I’m glad Rayner pushed the election being around the economy and not immigration, i know it’s a big thing on here and in the papers, and especially for Reform, but in reality the UK are pretty good with immigration, even during the last 14 years of a tory government, immigration has increased, i think the usual voters who talk immigration are really talking asylum seekers, and again, in the UK, we do tend to grant asylum to a greater number than our EU counterparts, so again, i don’t think the system is broken, i just think it gets politicised too much.

The problem with a huge labour majority and the lib dems as the opposition is that the 30-35% of the country that voted for right wing parties would have no representation and only feel more aggrieved. Not sure that’s particularly healthy.  Even though being honest it’s what I’d like to see!

I’m hoping a Starmer goverment will be held to account by people like Angela Rayner and Jess Phillips.

the 30-35% of the country that voted for right wing parties would have no representation and only feel more aggrieved.

So new converts to PR then.

I frankly couldn’t give a monkeys how aggrieved the Tories and other right-wingers might feel.

The problem with a huge labour majority and the lib dems as the opposition is that the 30-35% of the country that voted for right wing parties would have no representation

Since June 2016 48% of us have had no representation so ****’em! They’ve had their turn and look where it’s got us

I’m hoping a Starmer goverment will be held to account by people like Angela Rayner and Jess Phillips.

I’d say they already are, he’s had chances to ditch Rayner, but knows they’re a package now, reality is, if they get in with a huge majority, then you have 5 years of Labour potentially launching leadership campaigns, but you need to get in power first, that’s always been the thing people seem to gloss over about the whole Starmer thing.

I was happy to see that they didn’t bend to Unite this week either, from discussions, the unions were pretty happy with the manifesto, bar the workers rights bit relating to certain things, again, get into power, then shape those policies, it’s a slow road to progress in politics, we know that for a fact, otherwise the tories would have done a lot more in the last 14 years than they actually did!