General Election 2017 | Cabinet reshuffle: Hunt re-appointed Health Secretary for record third time

How do you intend to vote in the 2017 General Election if eligible?

  • Conservatives

    Votes: 80 14.5%

  • Labour

    Votes: 322 58.4%

  • Lib Dems

    Votes: 57 10.3%

  • Green

    Votes: 20 3.6%

  • SNP

    Votes: 13 2.4%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 29 5.3%

  • Independent

    Votes: 3 0.5%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 2 0.4%

  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 11 2.0%

  • Other (UUP, DUP, BNP, and anyone else I have forgotten)

    Votes: 14 2.5%
  • Total voters
    551
  • Poll closed .
@Damien "That’s why taking questions from members of the public who are going to be voting on 8 June is so important. That’s what I enjoy doing during the campaigns."

This bit in particular is just a downright lie, she does not in any way shape or form enjoy talking to the public. Possibly to anybody, but particularly to the unscripted and great unwashed who daren't burst her bubble.
 
Sassy Colin said:
But the last Labour government spent money like it was going out of fashion and look where we ended up. They presided over one of the most sustained periods of economic growth ever seen, but failed to put anything aside for a rainy day (no more boom and bust remember, or rather the biggest bust seen since the 30s), the Tories put the ground work in but Labour reaped the benefits. We could not have carried on spending at that rate. I am not sure what point you are trying to make here.
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The deficit did go down in 2006 and maybe would have again in 2007 if not for the crash.

And the deficit was very similar to that under the last Tory government.

In fact, just see here

f0fgWu8.png


Those numbers are in Billions, not as a percentage of GDP.
 
Kentonio said:
Ah yes, the phantom 'waste' like the thousands of police who we no longer have, and the 8 hours a night doctors and nurses used to waste sleeping when they could have been working.
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We'll jut forget that PFI ever happened then, as well as the 100s of millions wasted on a botched computerisation programme. Or that less mentioned outcome, Labour closing down services/hospitals in favour of monolithic hubs.

Boris gets the blame for the local police station mind, as that decision originated at City Hall.
 
FT endorsement that was just published is pretty excoriating of May and her plans.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
We'll jut forget that PFI ever happened then, as well as the 100s of millions wasted on a botched computerisation programme. Or that less mentioned outcome, Labour closing down services/hospitals in favour of monolithic hubs.

Boris gets the blame for the local police station mind, as that decision originated at City Hall.
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There are making mistakes with the NHS and then just out-right annihilating it. The only question is will it collapse before or after it is sold off due to May's plans? It rather ironically needs emergency financial surgery, surgery the tories are going to do by selling the NHS property and assets, or removing public funding from the trusts that refuse to do so. If you can afford private health-care, then fair enough, everyone else will be fecked.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
We'll jut forget that PFI ever happened then, as well as the 100s of millions wasted on a botched computerisation programme. Or that less mentioned outcome, Labour closing down services/hospitals in favour of monolithic hubs.

Boris gets the blame for the local police station mind, as that decision originated at City Hall.
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Not really sure what relevance this has to Corbyn and this election if I'm honest with you.
 
Adzzz said:
There are making mistakes with the NHS and then just out-right annihilating it. The only question is will it collapse before or after it is sold off due to May's plans? It rather ironically needs emergency financial surgery, surgery the tories are going to do by selling the NHS property and assets, or removing public funding from the trusts that refuse to do so. If you can afford private health-care, then fair enough, everyone else will be fecked.
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Yeah im not sure how anyone can argue that labour NHS mistakes are even comparable at this point
 
vi1lain said:


The thought of stomaching her being PM for 5 more years
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I'd love the reporter to reply 'Oh really, then why did you call an election instead of focusing on Brexit, which we've only got 2 years to complete and has bucketloads of details to agree upon'?
 
rcoobc said:
The deficit did go down in 2006 and maybe would have again in 2007 if not for the crash.

And the deficit was very similar to that under the last Tory government.

In fact, just see here

f0fgWu8.png


Those numbers are in Billions, not as a percentage of GDP.
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You're right, it should be percentage of GDP, it would look quite different then, and not in a favourable way to the Tories.

What should be considered in the earlier years above is that those deficits are despite one-off massive asset sales and the new north sea oil tax revenues, which were a much larger part of government income than they are now.
 
712 said:
You're right, it should be percentage of GDP, it would look quite different then, and not in a favourable way to the Tories.

What should be considered in the earlier years above is that those deficits are despite one-off massive asset sales and the new north sea oil tax revenues, which were a much larger part of government income than they are now.
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I'm not sure if those would be included or not, I dont think so, but am not sure.

Whats funny is that this was from the guardian. The left are so bad at propaganda!
 
712 said:
Thanks. Disregarding the world financial crisis of 2008 (controversial maybe) then there doesn't appear to be that much difference. Or maybe you can use it to argue which ever way you wanted to, I'm not sure. :)
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The budget debates have and always be nothing more than a proxy for arguments on tax and size of state.

Like immigration its just a convenient tool.
 
Kentonio said:
_47530170_uk_budget2010_466x345.gif
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712 said:
Thanks. Disregarding the world financial crisis of 2008 (controversial maybe) then there doesn't appear to be that much difference. Or maybe you can use it to argue which ever way you wanted to, I'm not sure. :)
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Really puts thing in perspective... maybe someone can even colour the years red and blue....

Poor Labour
 
I really hope she gets the kicking she deserves for not turning up tonight. She's shown such contempt for the public throughout this campaign, probably her entire political career as well to be fair
 
Smores said:
I really hope she gets the kicking she deserves for not turning up tonight. She's shown such contempt for the public throughout this campaign, probably her entire political career as well to be fair
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Corby will get a kicking from the others, and the media will state that May was 'wise to avoid the debate'.
 
It's weird, the Tory-owned YouGov that were making up massive leads to deter Labour voters a couple of weeks ago are suddenly showing Labour doing well, and now Tory Kuenssberg is putting the PM under pressure when she was supposed to be a mole put there by CCHQ.

Maybe they didn't get their paypackets this week.
 
Adzzz said:
There are making mistakes with the NHS and then just out-right annihilating it. The only question is will it collapse before or after it is sold off due to May's plans? It rather ironically needs emergency financial surgery, surgery the tories are going to do by selling the NHS property and assets, or removing public funding from the trusts that refuse to do so. If you can afford private health-care, then fair enough, everyone else will be fecked.
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These weren't minor mistakes or isolated cases, but rather a premeditated and ongoing policy of government. Hospital trusts were left with billions of pounds worth of debt, a burden which they have carried with them for years. And as i am sure you would acknowledge, once services are withdrawn they rarely return. You can't criticise Lansley one minute and give Labour a pat on the back the next.

As for privatisation - the NHS has proportionally less dependency than many of its western contemporaries, even today. And while the situation with agency staff has gotten way out of hand, not all company involvement is bad.


NinjaFletch said:
Not really sure what relevance this has to Corbyn and this election if I'm honest with you.
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Because such failures and breaches of trust influence how people will consider Labour's pronouncements in the present. The party's reputation has more to do with the 1940s than some glorious success in the 2000s.


rcoobc said:
Yeah im not sure how anyone can argue that labour NHS mistakes are even comparable at this point
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The various scandals notwithstanding, Labour's reign was not without its damage to patient care.
 
Kentonio said:
What do you mean 'Poor Labour'? That chart isn't positive for the conservatives.
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"Poor" as in unfortunate, that they got slated for their pre-recession deficit when it was historically pretty low.
 
Ubik said:
It's weird, the Tory-owned YouGov that were making up massive leads to deter Labour voters a couple of weeks ago are suddenly showing Labour doing well, and now Tory Kuenssberg is putting the PM under pressure when she was supposed to be a mole put there by CCHQ.

Maybe they didn't get their paypackets this week.
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I don't understand people saying YouGov is Tory owned just because it happened to have been founded by two Tories, with one of those still being CEO of the company. Oh did I miss Kuenssberg doing her job? Did she put pressure on The Appeaser by editing the interview so she was answering a completely different question, then make a point of saying the views that the edited version implied she held couldn't be more different to Jeremy Corbyn's? I do hope she remembers how to do that.
 
Owen Jones on today's Guardian podcast says that Labour's internal polling ("doorstep data") suggests a 12-15 point Conservative lead.

He then qualified that by pointing out how the Tory campaign has moved from campaign stops in Labour seats they think they can win to a more defensive strategy.

The overall tone of the discussion on the yougov report was fairly negative. A clear argument that I've heard from multiple places is that Labour are winning in the cities, and in places with large numbers of former Green and Lib Dem voters, i.e. parts of the country where Labour are either already very strong or very weak. So even a bump in the polls isn't going to be an obvious help for them, on current trends. Where they appear to be weak is in the towns and villages of the country, obviously meaning the areas that voted for Brexit and moved Conservative in a huge way in May's local elections. It remains to be seen what needs to be done to win over that constituency.
 
Kentonio said:
What do you mean 'Poor Labour'? That chart isn't positive for the conservatives.
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Poor Labour, as in, they get taken apart on their Fiscal record, including by me, but the Tories don't get nearly enough stick

Edit - Ubik'd again
 
Ubik said:
It's weird, the Tory-owned YouGov that were making up massive leads to deter Labour voters a couple of weeks ago are suddenly showing Labour doing well, and now Tory Kuenssberg is putting the PM under pressure when she was supposed to be a mole put there by CCHQ.

Maybe they didn't get their paypackets this week.
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Irrelevant.
 
ThierryHenry said:
Owen Jones on today's Guardian podcast says that Labour's internal polling ("doorstep data") suggests a 12-15 point Conservative lead.

He then qualified that by pointing out how the Tory campaign has moved from campaign stops in Labour seats they think they can win to a more defensive strategy.

The overall tone of the discussion on the yougov report was fairly negative. A clear argument that I've heard from multiple places is that Labour are winning in the cities, and in places with large numbers of former Green and Lib Dem voters, i.e. parts of the country where Labour are either already very strong or very weak. So even a bump in the polls isn't going to be an obvious help for them, on current trends. Where they appear to be weak is in the towns and villages of the country, obviously meaning the areas that voted for Brexit and moved Conservative in a huge way in May's local elections. It remains to be seen what needs to be done to win over that constituency.
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They were campaigning in Bolsover a week or two back (Dennis Skinner's seat), they were properly believing their own hype.

12-15 feels about right in my head now but the Tories' feels like a campaign that's completely stalled and they don't know what to do about it. There's usually a bit of a swingback to the government in the stretch but that feels far from assured for them. Read from old Labour campaign bods recently about a single day in the 2001 campaign when Jack Straw got slow hand-clapped by the police federation, Prescott punched an egg-thrower and Blair got shouted at by a member of the public about the NHS, all on the day they were launching their manifesto. They got through it because it was such a well drilled unit and Blair could brush this stuff off. You really don't get that feeling about the Tories.
 
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