General British politics discussion thread

"Do those unions really think they're members would be better off if Labour was in power in England instead?"

Yes.

Yes, they do; because any alternative Government would not continue the Tories current spending and taxation plans

Do you ever actually analyse politics in even the vaguest depth or is your username ironic?

The astonishing thing is the Sunak openly admits what is going on here; "Our political system rewards short-term decision-making that is holding our country back [and this is why, in the run-up to a general election, I am abruptly reversing a settled long-term policy adopted with cross-party support; I hope to minimise the scale of my party's inevitable loss in that election and I am prioritising that over the country's interests]".

Does he think that, by admitting what he is doing, he somehow defused criticism for doing it? It's a surprisingly common belief among selfish, entitled bastards that if they boast about being selfish, entitled bastards this somehow invalidates criticism of their selfishness, entitlement and bastardry.

To be fair to Thatcher — much as I dislike being fair to Thatcher — it was in fact the Argentinians who started that war, not Thatcher. And while I wouldn't have made the same strategic or tactical choices that she did in the prosecution of that war, I don't think we can say that her choices were a deliberate sacrifice of long-term national interest for short-term political gain. Given who she was, her personality and her values, it's entirely possible that her judgment was that assertive resistance to an armed attack was the right thing to do in the national interest.

In the event it turned out to be electorally very advantageous for her, but I'm not convinced that that was her primary motivation. Apart from anything else, it was by no means a given; with the benefit of hindsight, events unfolded in a way that worked out well for her popularity, but it could have been very different.

This is an entirely different situation. This isn't an external event which has been forced on Sunak; this is a reversal of a policy which Sunak himself advanced, and which parliament endorsed with bipartisan support.

Well, we'll know soon enough how this affects the polls. But most polls suggest that the net zero target is popular, and that the number of people who want more to be done to address climate change is greater than the number who want less to be done.

There's a vocal group, but I think a relatively small minority, who have the screaming habdabs over anything that might affect private motoring, but I suspect most members of that group are people who are likely to vote Tory anyway. This measure may be targetted not so much at winning votes back from Labour as at preventing Tory votes bleeding to Reform and similar groups.

I think you're overplaying things there.

Carrington didn't make it clear that the UK would respond with force to an invasion - that's very different to "would not object".

No leader of any country would survive allowing another country to unilaterally invade their territory without strong response.

Thatcher had many, many faults but responsibility for the Falklands conflict lies with the Argentinian junta, not her.

He's blatantly going for the racist and anti-science vote with some of his recent decisions - certainly not providing 'leadership' on anything.

The Fire Brigades Union was disabused of that idea 20 years ago.

they aren't pay rises, they are pay restorations as they had substantial pay cuts imposed upon them since 2010.

everyone will be better off with labour in power, whether small or big, whether starmer is the man for the job himself is a different question though, but there is no doubt he will be better then the current shower of junk no matter how bad he is.

from what i can see, generally outcomes seem to be better during a labour government then a tory one, at least since 1979.

not really, dispite them being prohibited from withdrawing their labour they were still better paid and better treated.

he was definitely one, or both of those yes.

i guess we will never know.

Never mind willing, are they still able to mount such an operation..

This week's Labour U-Turn:

Going to be utter dross v dross next election, but that's seemingly what people want. No meaningful change, just a change of colour from blue to red (for at least a few years anyway).

I think these tweets highlight just why it's such a cop out, and if they are going to achieve what they wanted in the first place anyway as you suggest, perhaps that should have been their initial policy announcement?

At the very least it's just bad politics to continually announce a policy idea then go back on it, why not have a little think first and be sure of the policy they are going to announce.

These pathetic attempts to paint Labour as the same as the party that pulled the UK out of the EU and gave us PMs Johnson, May, Sunak and Lizzy Lettuce are just utterly tedious and blatantly dishonest.

For fuk sake I was a hard left Labour member and Corbyn voter and even I can see the vast chasm between Starmer's Labour and the Tories.

I can't understand an opposition leader who is terrified of saying anything that will offend supporters of the government party, a party that is absolutely hated by a large section of the public. It's really quite mental.

I'm not totally surprised at the public school charitable status U-turn (using the British definition of public schools here, what we would call private schools). Some labour MPs will have kids in public schools. (They have had in the past, tho the best of my knwledge.) A lot of middle class labour voters will too, and senior civil servants, and lots of potential political donors. Basically anybody in England who can afford to send their kids to public school is quite likely to do so, and it doesn't mean they are all going to Harrow and Eton. Whatever about how this looks to voters (and I persoanlly am completely in favour of pulling the charitable status of these schools) it's probably a pragmatic, and somewhat cynical, attempt to avoid upsetting a lot of influential people, including quite a few of their own MPs and supporters.