General British politics discussion thread

Timberrrrrrrr

Farage fuming because apparently the vetting company reform paid £144,000 to didn't do any work and that's why so many racists got through as reform candidates.

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1803023561939882366?t=-C0LrMALq3G_zsmTK3Musw&s=19

There's just one small problem with his claim

https://twitter.com/Frances_Coppola/status/1803088353148981720?t=zf5pUjwjxEIbunWNIq1pUA&s=19

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122274781#Comment_122274781

I presume by saying that they didn't expect anything to come at them from the right, you mean that they thought that they had that vote squared off since their whole rightward shift was done to prevent precisely that.

They had two European Parliamentary elections (2014 & 2019) where they were first beaten (27% to 23%) and then trounced (31% to 9%) by Farage's party. And though the turnout at those European Elections was low (36 & 37%), it was still a strong indicator of a significant support base for Farage & co.

Also, they knew, or should have known that their massive 2019 majority was only possible because the Brexit Party did not stand against sitting Conservative MPs. Since that will not apply in this election, even the safest of Tory seats looks vulnerable.

I read somewhere that when a party tries to ape another, voters will often prefer the undiluted original. It happened in the European election in 2019 and it looks like it's going to happen in this general election too.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122275750#Comment_122275750

This is new ground for British politics. Nobody cares about the European elections, least of all when the UK was an EU member state.

The UK has always had far right and deplorable organisations from UKIP to the National Front. I've never seen one do this well. All the talk about UKIP in 2015 fizzled out once Farage left and the 2016 vote was won. Professor John Curtice has said that Reform UK could cost the Tories as many as 60 seats.

Your presumption is correct. They just assume that attacks can only come from the left. However, they've decided to respond to events with some sort of Schlieffen plan for morons by ignoring the near existential threat from Labour and the Liberal Democrats to try and out racist Farage.

It's a very stupid predicament in which they've placed themselves. They virtue signalled about immigration as if they were an upstart outfit, not the primary establishment party. By not doing anything about immigration after having lionised it, they've doomed themselves. Add to this Johnson's purge, the covid parties and the continued denuding of the country and they've only themselves to blame.

For all this, they'll still be the main opposition party. I think their demise is sadly unlikely. Reform's weakness is that anyone thinking of voting for them risks a Labour win. That alone will save the Conservatives.

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122275799#Comment_122275799

Reform's weakness is that anyone thinking of voting for them risks a Labour win.

Don't agree with this. I think a Labour win is already baked in so people know there's almost no point in voting Tory this time. The Red Wall vote lenders will be taking their vote back. The pissed-off Tory centrists will vote LibDem and the pissed off Tory right wingers will vote Reform. And I'd question the likely turnout of people who are not pissed off.

Very hard to see where their votes will come from.

CelticRambler

The biggest threat to the Tories as I see it (I've said it before) is not the relatively simple fact that Reform might attract a lot of attention and dilute the Tory vote, but that Reform will attract about the same percentage of the vote (in England) and come away with no seats, or maybe one, or maybe two thanks to the injustice that is FPTP.

That'll give them a whole new battleground to make a lot of noise about, and unlike their Transatlantic counterparts, they won't have to spin some yarn about the election being "rigged" or "stolen" - they'll actually have a valid point, and years of Lib Dem complaints to hold up as evidence.

Now Labour won't want to mess around with the system for the next election, and perhaps not for the one after that either, but there'll come a time when they'll be facing defeat, and that may well be - it should be - the point at which they realise the only way to keep a renaissant Tory party out will be through some kind of PR and (quelle horreur) a coalition of some colour other than blue.

However, while Labour ought to be able to strategise for such an eventuality on the basis of things being fairly okay across the membership, the Tories will waste several years sorting themselves out and more again trying to create a new re-electable identity. That may be time they don't have.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122275843#Comment_122275843

That's my reading too. Every single Tory voter knows that Starmer will be PM in three week's time : in that case, why would they feel the need to vote for the Conservatives?

A Dub in Glasgo

It is absolutely obvious that Labour will romp the GE, not sure who these people are who think the Tories have a chance

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122275843#Comment_122275843

The Tories will always have their core vote who will vote for them without thought.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122275928#Comment_122275928

Because some will still hope to hold on to their MP who "always seemed a nice sort" and who always helped in the local campaign to NIMBY the kids out of a playground or youth centre.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122276154#Comment_122276154

But UK pollsters are suggesting that no Tory seat is safe, suggesting it is far from a given that the party can rely on traditional Conservative voters.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122276737#Comment_122276737

No seat is safe but they are not predicting they will lose all of them so some are safe it's just not sure which ones.

They will also still come second in many areas which means the core vote is still there it just doesn't have the swingers to get them over the line.

devnull

The Tory press are still hoping that they are going to hammer home that Labour is going to tax them to death, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail in particular have been getting desperate with this in recent days, with the Daily Express seemingly going so much in that direction that you wonder if it is run and operated directly by the Tory party. I expect them to get more and more desperate as the campaign goes on and who knows what rubbish they will print in the days ahead.

I hope to hell this does not stick, because we all know how the Tory party is going to make these huge tax cuts they are talking about. By cutting the benefits of the poorest and most vulnerable in society. It is obvious for everyone to see that is how it is going to work. I am surprised that nobody has pulled them up more on that yet.

There is a real disconnect between many traditional even still diehard Tory voters I know who don't seem to see the relationship between tax and public services and looking after our most vulnerable. They just care about tax and nothing else but then go and moan about the state of public services.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122275675#Comment_122275675

If I were Nigel Farage I would simply not draw attention to the fact that the party I founded, own and lead is a magnet for racists, nutters, loons and bigots.

Nor, come to think of it, would I draw attention to the massive incompetence of the party that I founded, own and lead. If it boasts about wasting its own money in this fashion, who would ever put it in charge of spending public money?

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122277002#Comment_122277002

Anyone on benefits is hated by the Tory voters. People on benefits could go away and die and the Tory voter would think it a great thing.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122277152#Comment_122277152

But only for a particular understanding of "benefits" from which, for some reason, the state pension is arbitrarily excluded.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122277002#Comment_122277002

It won't. The Tories have implemented the highest income taxies in the history of the state. Tax cuts only appeal if you own enough wealth to meaningfully benefit from a tax cut. Newspaper circulation is thankfully decreasing so I'm not worried.

Shoog

We Know from 50years of tax cuts that they only ever produce short term economic growth and inevitably cause increased social stratification. The only time they seemed to work in the UK was when Thatcher had the benefit of North Sea Gas tax revenues and massive inflows of cash from selling off national assets. The reason why the Tories are in the dire straights they are in now is because of their slavish addiction to this discredited trickle down fantasy. The reason why general taxation is at an all time high is because taxation of the rich is at an all time low. This is the truth of the pup that Hunt is trying to sell. The reality is you need general taxation to keep the country ticking over - and the only tax cuts that ever get made are for your crony backers. As economic growth flat lines you need progressively more general taxation to keep things working.

Rich people hoard their tax cuts so benefit the economy not one jot.

Can the Labour party tell this relatively simple story ?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122277509#Comment_122277509

Your analysis omits various things. While it is true that Thatcher sold off many state assets, it's not the main reason that we're in the position we're in. Selling off social housing is only a problem because the stock was not replaced and we now have a warped private sector that's almost the only game in town. The boom in the Thatcher years had more to do with the deregulation of the city and the closing down of various unprofitable industries, namely mining. Of course, this came with the obvious lack of resilience that manifested in 2008.

Taxing the rich isn't easy. These people often employ specialists to minimise the amount of tax they pay. Assets and capital are more mobile than ever. That doesn't mean that the state is powerless. I'd be very keen on a mansion tax or a land value tax for instance. I don't expect it to happen but there are some options for progressive taxation.

The real problems for the Conservatives are the ones they created solely by themselves. There's a cost of living crisis because they sold off masses of social housing stock while carefully nurturing and cossetting NIMBYs (the Lib Dems are almost as bad). Brexit still acts as a straightjacket on the economy and it's the closest thing they have to an achievement in 14 years of governance. They've mismanaged the NHS to the point where it's easier to book a flight to another country to see a GP than get one on the NHS. I personally see a different GP each time in a different location and can't even make appointments by going to the surgery any more. They've basically made the mistake of causing tangible, real world damage to people's standard of living. Our money goes less far than it has for a long time, the rivers, lakes and seas are polluted thanks to Brexit while the big energy companies make a killing.

The less said about Covid, the better.

The problems don't get solved because they don't want to solve them. If things are going well while they denude the state, great. If not, neoliberalism can only fail because it wasn't done hard enough.

yagan

I can't get this link below to embed, but it's a eurostat snapshot of the age of the housing stock acorss the bloc in 2011, pre Brexit.

https://thumbor.bigedition.com/buildings/HnRVLyhv40PLRgZ_-CIHjKtKtZI=/480x0/filters:format(webp):quality(80)/granite-web-prod/15/d1/15d126e2c8ed417fa729580308f587b1.png

I does how outdated and thus bad value housing in the UK is compared to elsewhere.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122278218#Comment_122278218

Not sure how useful it is given how many countries like the Netherlands and Ireland also have severe housing crises.

yagan

The newer the housing stock the better value it is from an insulation point of view, which means a healthier household.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122278317#Comment_122278317

People here are very skeptical of new builds. They've a very bad reputation and are seen as best avoided unless there's no other option. Housing quality seems to be on the lower end here as well.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122278334#Comment_122278334

I can't reason with you about average value of built stock. I can only say I was a bit shocked when I rented in England how what they considered the average legally acceptable is condemned in Ireland.

New builds in England are questionable too, but they don't have that pesky EU redtape crimping profits.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122278317#Comment_122278317

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Purely anecdotal, but my region of France is there in the "red" zone, with most houses at least 150-200 years old; and most of the locals live healthy active lives until their 80s or 90s. Oh, and we most definitely don't have a housing crisis in our area. In fact, I'd go so far as to say there is no "housing crisis" in any of the red départements on that map.

This is one of the aspects of modern life (like "the health service in crisis") that transcends nations and political divides, and has much more to do with consumerist capitalist democracy in general than any particular flavour of same. Modern western voters repeatedly exhibit a desperate desire to have the best bits of what their parents/grandparents enjoyed without accepting the limits and inconveniences that came with those years, and without recognising the implications of demographic change.

But the Tories still managed to make things a hell of a lot worse for the British than they needed to be.

Timberrrrrrrr

I know polls are not to be trusted and the only one that matters is on July 4th but if this happens then WOW, What a legacy to leave behind.

https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1803456288438845929?t=GQEbH6XqnCHfj0Jt9kEsAA&s=19

Water John

Those numbers I'd say look unlikely. Seems to be a very extreme poll. The other poll out might be nearer the mark:

'The findings from today’s Ipsos MRP poll show in no uncertain terms just how much trouble the Conservatives are in. Our model has the Conservatives winning just 115 seats, with Labour on 453.' The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/18/ipsos-poll-shows-just-how-deep-a-hole-the-conservatives-are-in

Enzokk

I see a scenario where the Tories will be planting the seeds in the week before the election that they will only win 50 seats…and then if they win 100 they will have done twice as well as they should. 😉

This will surely not be good reading for them either,

https://www.twitter.com/metecoban92/status/1803384888134967646

We know most young voters vote anyone other than Conservative so the more new voters there are the less support there will be for the Tories.

breezy1985

My social media has been full of friends sharing various groups who are pushing voter registration with info about cut off times and portals to register.

Hopefully these people actually also vote on the day but I bet a lot of them are in the already massive Labour areas.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122278600#Comment_122278600

No, they have NIMBYs and councils strangling profits.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122279761#Comment_122279761

I just don't see it being that good for the country though. I really struggle when they voted so heavily for the Tories in 2017. I'd love to see the Liberal Democrats do better so that they can apply more pressure for PR-STV but living here for 13 years has not fed my sense of optimism.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122279882#Comment_122279882

Phil Moorhouse had a look at that one earlier today ( video here ) and showed how the headline figures hide a much grimmer scenario for the Tories. The detail indicates that the Tories and the Lib Dems are neck and neck in the "likely" or "very likely" to win constituencies, while the rest of projected Tory advantage is made up of "maybe" and "flip a coin" contests.

Strazdas

One thing about this campaign is that the Tories seem in much, worse shape than 1997. Yes, Major's party was unpopular and Blair was expected to win, but this version of the Conservatives and Sunak seem absolutely hated by vast swathes of the population.