General British politics discussion thread

Thanks for the clarification! Do you know if private and independent schools also use charitable status?

Edit, to answer my own question:

"There are around 2,500 private schools in England and Wales and the government says half are registered as charities and can therefore claim charitable status."

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66942985

It doesn't matter what "a large section of the public" thinks - the government in England is elected on the back of a few key constituencies. They don't need (or care about having) the love of the majority, as long as they can get/keep their critical minority of support. The same applies to Labour - if they want to win the next election, they must cater to the wishes of at least some of those who've gone lukewarm on the Tory party.

Blair got to stay in office for so long because the UK economy was doing well in the early-mid 2000's.

I understand the point, but perhaps if everyone had to use the state system, it might be better supported. The more parents go the private route the less likely they are to vote for a party that actually wants to make state schools better. And when all those high achieving ambitious kids from the lesser private schools work their way up the ladder, they send their kids to slightly better private schools, while making decisions in government, whether conscious or not, that protect and/or benefit the private school system. Maybe it can be called class warfare (no pun intended), but that war has been going on for generations, only most of the combatants are unaware it's going on.

True, but if "levelling up" were anything more than a soundbite, then providing excellent education in state schools would be a good step in the right direction, and changing the funding model and control away from local authorities could be part of that if the political will was there for it.

However the status quo is unlikely to be challenged, as too many of the decision makers are already captured by the system.

Unfortunately politicians' egalitarian principles (if they have any to start with) are quickly discarded when it comes to their own children. Human nature perhaps, but not very noble.

This is what I was thinking, rather than announcing something, couldn't Labour just put some ambiguous or non-committal wording on these types of delicate issues in their next manifesto? Rather than changing the policy completely, just pivot a bit but in something as broad as an election manifesto that doesn't get picked up.

I mean, Starmer is being ambiguous or non-committal in relation to a huge issue like Brexit, much easier to do so with much smaller issues (which are actually non-issues until you announce that you are changing your policy completely).

Or alternatively, even if something is still officially their policy, if they decide they don't actually want to make the change, they can just not get round to changing it when in government.

Labour just seem really bad at playing politics, giving the media and others ammunition to use against them on nothing issues while they pathetically tip-toe around Brexit desperately trying to avoid upsetting people who are naturally hostile to Labour anyway.

43% is a minority absolutely, it's simply only a majority for a specific party.

52% at 17 million is absolutely an ultra-minority but is not a majority over all.

ergo, a minority of people are now holding britain to ransom, what an absolute shame for the majority of british people who do not want the junk show they have had forced upon them against their will.

so yes, you mean the centre to centre left as i said.

the hard left barely exist in britain, they are so small to be so irrelevant.

as i said, in the uk anything that is not of the hard to far and alt right political viewpoint is considered far left/communist/whatever you are having yourself.

Perhaps people would like if the things they say and do one month, would remain the same things the next month or more. Maybe they'll go back to saying nothing, the saying stuff route has dropped the lead in latest poll to (a still very healthy)10%.

Anyhoo, in other news Tory Conference more than half empty for James Cleverly's speech. I'm sure it'll fill up more in coming days but dire attendance at present.

The same GBNews that just "cancelled" a number of reporters 🤣

What I find most amazing is that a UK government would gloat about more or less having a supposed independent news station as part of the team.

They always had the media behind them but the difference is they used be intelligent enough to keep it behind the scenes.

I lost some respect for Rory Stewart today on The Rest Is Politics podcast when he called Theresa May “one of my political heroes”.

I very much appreciate the respectful tone that he and Alastair Campbell bring to their podcast, but by any measure, she was dire. I really don’t like how she’s gradually been rebranded as somewhat successful, just because she isn’t totally evil and is capable of the most basic level of competence in certain areas.

She played no small role in the debasement of public discourse with her “Brexit means Brexit” crap, creation of the hostile environment that has emboldened populists like Cruella Braverman to go further and further, and complete failure to get her party to coalesce around any one form of Brexit. And she gambled on a general election and lost their majority.

She always struck me as a limited, parochial sort of person, who’s never ventured outside the Home Counties in terms of expanding her frame of reference. Why on earth would she be anyone’s political hero?