General Election 2024

Who got your vote?

  • Labour

    Votes: 147 54.2%

  • Conservative

    Votes: 5 1.8%

  • Lib Dem

    Votes: 25 9.2%

  • Green

    Votes: 48 17.7%

  • Reform

    Votes: 11 4.1%

  • SNP

    Votes: 5 1.8%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Independent

    Votes: 8 3.0%

  • UK resident but not voting

    Votes: 18 6.6%

  • Spoiled my ballot

    Votes: 3 1.1%
  • Total voters
    271
  • Poll closed .
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TwoSheds said:
You're in the minority there my friend. Most HR departments are packed full of snakes, incompetents, and incompetent snakes. If you get one that's both capable and nice then you've to hold on to them for dear life.
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I don't disagree, and I know I'm very ideological about it, but even if you're the most cynical person when it comes to employee engagement and employment rights, if you analyze everything, you can see that you have nothing to lose by investing in a great working environment.

Last year I went to a conference in Victoria, and a high up HR professional from DHL was speaking, and she was bragging about how their positive outlook comms "sold" the idea of hybrid model to their employees after the lockdown, saying that instead of "asking their employess to work from the office 3 days a week, they offered their employees the chance to work from home 2 days per week". I raised hand and questioned her about it, and told her that if you have to trick your employees that way you're losing two "true benefits", transparency and WFH flexibility, and if she thinks that could end up becoming an own goal, and the answers I got were truly out of touch.
 
Eplel said:
I work in HR too. Any employer that thinks having the means to easily dismiss their employees is an advantage for them is looking at the tree and missing the forrest.
Employers lose money when they lose employees and have to replace them and train their replacements.

My job in HR is to make sure the environment is right for the employees to thrive, and that way my employer wins too. If the employer thinks that treating your workforce well is a cost, they are deluded - it's an investment on one of their most valuable resources, if not the most valuable.
My advice is, if you're in the corporate side of HR, jump to startups/scaleups. The difference is night and day, and it will do wonders for your mental health.
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Thanks for this! I completely agree, I work in an industry that unfortunately has a high turnover of staff, a lot of my work is trying to reduce this.
 
Buster15 said:
I am hopeful that in the GE, Reform only get a very few MPs and they will also dwindle. Especially if Farage takes over the Tories...
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Farage does not form political parties to take over government, but by using the guise of a political party, all the way through from UKIP/BREXIT/REFORM he has been forming political pressure groups that can be used when the time is right. If anyone has found a way to play the FPTP system without having to do anything, its him.

The best result for Farage will to have REFORM take around 15% of the vote but get no MPs. He can then whine on about PR as though he is serious.
The second best result for Farage is for REFORM to take around 18-19%, bypass the Tories, in votes cast, but still only have 1 or 2 MPs, Farage being I of them, so he can float in and out of Westminster and cause a stir every time he gets to his feet and harasses Starmer, from behind cover.

As @Longshanks has said, (see below) Farage has zeroed in on decades, and generations of working people in many regions and hundreds of towns in the UK, that feel left behind/let down as their industrial heritage has declined, and via UKIP and Brexit and now Reform, he is playing on the fears of uncontrolled immigration to rally people to a cause, a false cause, but they don't know that yet!

Longshanks said:
The left have failed them, because the left should be the ones to look after them. We learn nothing from history it seems.
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Correct, immigration has been an essential part of this countries place in the world, but it has always been believed (at least to be) under control; however it is now seen to be out of control (the small boats are but a symptom of this) and whilst it is seen in this light, then Farage has a platform. Starmer needs to deal with this situation to ensure; (a) the UK economy grows and prospers with the help of immigrants, and (b) also to 'shoot Farages' fox.'
 
The left haven't let down the white working class in the UK, that's the Tories. They have held power and chosen to line the pockets of the super wealthy and not invest in the infrastructure of the country. The 'left' are the ones who run soup kitchens, food banks and so on. Farage's lot only mention the homeless when they can use it to bash immigrants (eg: "Why are we helping these people when we have homeless veterans?").

It's really disingenuous to blame the left for the state we're in when the entire establishment is designed to keep wealth and power in the hands of a minority. The left would go about fixing the problems, which are all rooted in inequality.
 
Just as the Tories were the dynasty of finance capital, so the Reform voters are the dynasty of the retiree.

The property owning retiree form an enormous mass whose members live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with each other. Their mode of living isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. The isolation is furthered by England poor means of communication and the poverty of the retirees. Their field of living, semi-detached home permits, no application of science, and therefore no multifariousness of development, no diversity of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual retiree is almost self-sufficient, directly paying most of its consumer needs, and thus acquires its means of life more through an exchange with online tesco than in intercourse with society. A semi-detached, the retiree and his/her property; beside it another semi-detached, another retiree and another semi detached. A few score of these constitute a village, and a few score villages constitute Ashfield.

Insofar as millions of retirees live under conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. Insofar as there is merely a local interconnection among these property owning retirees, and the identity of their interests forms no community, no national bond, and no political organization among them, they do not constitute a class. They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, an unlimited governmental power which protects them from the other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above. The political influence of the property owing retiree, therefore, finds its final expression in the executive power which subordinates society to itself.

Historical tradition gave rise to the english retiree belief in the miracle of a referendum that would bring all glory back to them. And there turned up an individual who claims to be the man of the referendum because he bears the name Farage.

But let us not misunderstand. The Farage dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative retiree; not the retiree who strikes out beyond the condition of his/her semi-detached home, but rather one who wants to consolidate his/her home; not the home owners who in alliance with the cities want to overthrow the old order through their own energies, but on the contrary those who, in solid seclusion within this old order, want to see themselves and their house prices saved. It represents not the enlightenment but the superstition of the retiree; not his/her judgment but his/her prejudice; not the future but the past.
 
Sweet Square said:
Just as the Tories were the dynasty of finance capital, so the Reform voters are the dynasty of the retiree.

The property owning retiree form an enormous mass whose members live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with each other. Their mode of living isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. The isolation is furthered by England poor means of communication and the poverty of the retirees. Their field of living, semi-detached home permits, no application of science, and therefore no multifariousness of development, no diversity of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual retiree is almost self-sufficient, directly paying most of its consumer needs, and thus acquires its means of life more through an exchange with online tesco than in intercourse with society. A semi-detached, the retiree and his/her property; beside it another semi-detached, another retiree and another semi detached. A few score of these constitute a village, and a few score villages constitute Ashfield.

Insofar as millions of retirees live under conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. Insofar as there is merely a local interconnection among these property owning retirees, and the identity of their interests forms no community, no national bond, and no political organization among them, they do not constitute a class. They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, an unlimited governmental power which protects them from the other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above. The political influence of the property owing retiree, therefore, finds its final expression in the executive power which subordinates society to itself.

Historical tradition gave rise to the english retiree belief in the miracle of a referendum that would bring all glory back to them. And there turned up an individual who claims to be the man of the referendum because he bears the name Farage.

But let us not misunderstand. The Farage dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative retiree; not the retiree who strikes out beyond the condition of his/her semi-detached home, but rather one who wants to consolidate his/her home; not the home owners who in alliance with the cities want to overthrow the old order through their own energies, but on the contrary those who, in solid seclusion within this old order, want to see themselves and their house prices saved. It represents not the enlightenment but the superstition of the retiree; not his/her judgment but his/her prejudice; not the future but the past.
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Come on @Mr Pigeon, we know it's you.
 
Eplel said:
I work in HR too. Any employer that thinks having the means to easily dismiss their employees is an advantage for them is looking at the tree and missing the forrest.
Employers lose money when they lose employees and have to replace them and train their replacements.

My job in HR is to make sure the environment is right for the employees to thrive, and that way my employer wins too. If the employer thinks that treating your workforce well is a cost, they are deluded - it's an investment on one of their most valuable resources, if not the most valuable.
My advice is, if you're in the corporate side of HR, jump to startups/scaleups. The difference is night and day, and it will do wonders for your mental health.
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I feel like you're missing the point here, it's not about the benefit of being able to easily dismiss (which isn't true anyway) or disregarding the need for good management and coaching. That's important but ultimately a separate discussion.

It's simply that companies with a medium to large low skill workforce have a lot of disruptive bad apples creating significant turnover. Those organisations will face a huge uplift in tribunal claims and settlements, even if they've followed proper process. A more sensible plan would be to reduce it a year rather than day 1 and see the impacts first.
 
Marx, unsurprisingly

‘The small peasants form a vast mass, the members of which live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another, instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. The isolation is increased by France’s bad means of communication and by the poverty of the peasants. Their field of production, the small-holding, admits of no division of labour in its cultivation, no application of science, and, therefore, no multiplicity of development, no diversity of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient; it itself directly produces the major part of its consumption and thus acquires its means of life more through exchange with nature than its intercourse with society ... Insofar as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that divide their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of other classes, and put them in hostile contrast to the latter, they form a class. Insofar as there is merely a local interconnection among these small peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no unity, no national union, and no political organisation, they do not form a class. They are consequently incapable of enforcing their class interest in their own names, whether through a parliament or through a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.’
 
Badunk said:
The left haven't let down the white working class in the UK, that's the Tories
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Who has ever really believed the Tories represented the interests of the working class (white or otherwise) even Boris didn't go that far, he was just using the 'red wall to stablise the Tories.

In my life time, the left has repeatedly been unable marshal itself in to a potential force for the support of the working public, and has been the cause of the Tories being able to claim they are the 'natural party of government'.
After the post WW2 labour government successes with NHS and Education Acts, which changed the lives and futures of millions of working people, and a brief interlude with Blair/New Labour, its been a sh** show for Labour.
Wilson in numbers of seats, and then Callaghan's 'winter of discontent' couldn't muster the support because of 'radical lefties' inside the Labour party whining on about 'international socialism' rather than consolidating UK socialism, ( and 'frightening the horses to boot).
When the public (as now) got fed up with the Tories, both Foot and Corbyn had the chance and blew it completely, most of the others never came close or had a real opportunity to catch out the Tories.

Starmer has a chance to break through and is rightly playing to win, not come a glorious second.
 
Smores said:
It's simply that companies with a medium to large low skill workforce have a lot of disruptive bad apples creating significant turnover.
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Solution is simple, don't hire them.
But if you pay pennies, and they're they only ones that apply to your roles, I see the problem.
 
Is the Sun about to endorse Sir Keir Starmer?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw88x6ww1p8o

In 1997, Stuart Higgins was editor of the Sun.

Higgins sniffs change now too, for Labour. "In a couple of weeks it will be, I think, probably a cautious endorsement. There won't be the great fanfare of a clever old Sun headline," he says.

"There's not going to be, 'We're only here for the Keir' or 'Keir we go' or 'Stormer Starmer'," he tells me.

"It's going to be a lot more subtle, caveated support that is basically going to be saying, 'we will get behind you, but we're going to be watching you very, very carefully because we're not really wholeheartedly behind you. But we recognise that the country is fed up with the Tories, and in the same way as 97, the country needs a breath of fresh air and perhaps needs to give Keir Starmer and the Labour Party a chance.'"
 
Maticmaker said:
Who has ever really believed the Tories represented the interests of the working class (white or otherwise) even Boris didn't go that far, he was just using the 'red wall to stablise the Tories.

In my life time, the left has repeatedly been unable marshal itself in to a potential force for the support of the working public, and has been the cause of the Tories being able to claim they are the 'natural party of government'.
After the post WW2 labour government successes with NHS and Education Acts, which changed the lives and futures of millions of working people, and a brief interlude with Blair/New Labour, its been a sh** show for Labour.
Wilson in numbers of seats, and then Callaghan's 'winter of discontent' couldn't muster the support because of 'radical lefties' inside the Labour party whining on about 'international socialism' rather than consolidating UK socialism, ( and 'frightening the horses to boot).
When the public (as now) got fed up with the Tories, both Foot and Corbyn had the chance and blew it completely, most of the others never came close or had a real opportunity to catch out the Tories.

Starmer has a chance to break through and is rightly playing to win, not come a glorious second.
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They've never been able to secure a hold because they contain so many negative elements and whilst the average British public may like the idea of curtailing the rich, we're also quite an aspirational bunch and there's always a policy or two in there that makes people think 'hang on, that one could get me'. No party that focuses on bringing everybody down to the lowest level is going to succeed long term but they will always have a core voter base to rely on and keep them relevant.

Starmer has for the most part kept the politics of envy at bay within his party but I worry for any second term when the emboldened hard left start pushing him for more and more extreme policies. Or worse they elbow him out and replace with one of their own.
 
Frosty said:
Is the Sun about to endorse Sir Keir Starmer?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw88x6ww1p8o

In 1997, Stuart Higgins was editor of the Sun.

Higgins sniffs change now too, for Labour. "In a couple of weeks it will be, I think, probably a cautious endorsement. There won't be the great fanfare of a clever old Sun headline," he says.

"There's not going to be, 'We're only here for the Keir' or 'Keir we go' or 'Stormer Starmer'," he tells me.

"It's going to be a lot more subtle, caveated support that is basically going to be saying, 'we will get behind you, but we're going to be watching you very, very carefully because we're not really wholeheartedly behind you. But we recognise that the country is fed up with the Tories, and in the same way as 97, the country needs a breath of fresh air and perhaps needs to give Keir Starmer and the Labour Party a chance.'"
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I was going to ask if anyone knows their position yet. AFAIK they have never lost an election and I thought this might be their first but it looks like they might want to keep that record otherwise they’d be backing Reform.
 
Frosty said:
Is the Sun about to endorse Sir Keir Starmer?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw88x6ww1p8o

In 1997, Stuart Higgins was editor of the Sun.

Higgins sniffs change now too, for Labour. "In a couple of weeks it will be, I think, probably a cautious endorsement. There won't be the great fanfare of a clever old Sun headline," he says.

"There's not going to be, 'We're only here for the Keir' or 'Keir we go' or 'Stormer Starmer'," he tells me.

"It's going to be a lot more subtle, caveated support that is basically going to be saying, 'we will get behind you, but we're going to be watching you very, very carefully because we're not really wholeheartedly behind you. But we recognise that the country is fed up with the Tories, and in the same way as 97, the country needs a breath of fresh air and perhaps needs to give Keir Starmer and the Labour Party a chance.'"
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From the Guardian back in 2020
When running for party leader in 2020, Starmer told an audience in Liverpool that he would boycott the Sun during the leadership contest. “This city has been wounded by the media – the Sun … I certainly won't be giving an interview to the Sun during the course of this campaign,” he said.
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.
 
The Greens and LibDems 3pts ahead of Reform. You wouldn't haven't thought so reading the mainstream press.
 
Superden said:
The Greens and LibDems 3pts ahead of Reform. You wouldn't haven't thought so reading the mainstream press.
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Reading the press you’d think Farage was basically PM after successfully leading us all out of Europe. :lol:
 
Pexbo said:
I was going to ask if anyone knows their position yet. AFAIK they have never lost an election and I thought this might be their first but it looks like they might want to keep that record otherwise they’d be backing Reform.
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That record has been since 1979. When you think about it, they basically backed the party leading in the polls. As the BBC article suggests, I expect a tepid endorsement over the next couple of weeks.
 
I'm absolutely fecking sick and tired of all this bullshit. We have had 14 years of one of the most corrupt, disingenuous and destructive governments of all time. This included leaders the public didn't vote for and the absolute fecking shambles that is Brexit, of which we will be suffering the pain of for years to come.

To make things worse our current Prime Minister is barely better than the last one who lasted all of two weeks or the one before who in my opinion is a national embarrassment and should never have been allowed anywhere near a local council seat in Dorset let alone PM.

On top of all that we now have an upcoming general election where it's clear Labour are going to walk it. Labour who are unrecognizable from the party they originally were and still claim to be. The leader is just a newer version of Tony Blair just in a better suit and who shares something with his opponent and our current PM and that is they are both rich tossers who are so out of touch with normal people it's unreal. Both are inventing absolutely laughable anecdotes of struggling and being poor when growing up and it's just offensive. It's taking the piss in my opinion. None of this is anything new, but yet again it seems the vast majority of the public don't fecking learn. It's a case of 'well labour must be better than the Tories and nobody else has a chance'

The news is wall wall coverage of Labour and the Conservatives, Farage and his racist gang of reformers are getting mentions too but hardly anything for the Green Party or Lib Dems. We all take the piss out of the USA (rightfully so) but honestly, we aren't much better really. As a society on a whole we learn feck all and just keep electing these two corruption filled cabinets of wankers out for themselves and the odd few who really care but don't have the sway to make a real difference.

I don't think I've ever been more disinterested in a general election since I've been legally allowed to vote.


It's just all so depressing and just seems inevitable we will be saying similar in 4 or 8 or 12 years time.
 
Farage plea to the nation.....I have the courage to take on The Mob.... join me in the revolt.

Who does he cast as The Mob I wonder.
And he is planning a revolt.
Interesting...
 
Longshanks said:
It's not Nigel Farage or the far right that need engaging, it's the white working class that feel like they are getting squeezed out of there own towns and cities, there towns and cities and the people in them, have changed beyond recognition In the last 20 years, the traditional left call them racists, the traditional right don't give a damn. They feel lost and isolated and Farage calls to there fears, they can see the result of immigration and mass migration staring them in the face, alongside the fact that there public services have crumbled before there eyes.

These people live in post industrial Britain which is some of the poorest and most deprived area of Europe let alone Britain. They have been deserted by the traditional parties that is what has led to UKIP/Brexit and now Reform.

They are not all racist bigots, they have very real fears that actually have some substance and it's not just based on racism. The left have failed them, because the left should be the ones to look after them. We learn nothing from history it seems.
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How have 'the left' failed them over the past 20 years, when they've had no power for the last 14?

The right-wing government of the past decade and a half has failed them and their response is to shift even further right even than the most right-wing Tory party I've ever known in my lifetime? The same thought process that brought us Brexit, defunded local authorities (essentially punishment for areas not having Tory MPs) public service cuts, and recession and ruined these places even further?

How have they been led to believe that the answer is more of the same, but with more overt nastiness from a party run by the architect of this mess? Why not give 'the left' a chance, instead?
 
The country is finished no matter who wins with the stabbings, violence, corruption, mass immigration, shootings, poverty, low pay, dying military, disgraceful public services, and inflation. Labour cannot save it and the Tories absolutely can't do anything but make things worse.
 
Smithy89 said:
The country is finished no matter who wins with the stabbings, violence, corruption, mass immigration, shootings, poverty, low pay, dying military, disgraceful public services, and inflation. Labour cannot save it and the Tories absolutely can't do anything but make things worse.
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When did this start?
 
Smithy89 said:
The country is finished no matter who wins with the stabbings, violence, corruption, mass immigration, shootings, poverty, low pay, dying military, disgraceful public services, and inflation. Labour cannot save it and the Tories absolutely can't do anything but make things worse.
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:lol:
 
langster said:
I'm absolutely fecking sick and tired of all this bullshit. We have had 14 years of one of the most corrupt, disingenuous and destructive governments of all time. This included leaders the public didn't vote for and the absolute fecking shambles that is Brexit, of which we will be suffering the pain of for years to come.

I don't think I've ever been more disinterested in a general election since I've been legally allowed to vote.


It's just all so depressing and just seems inevitable we will be saying similar in 4 or 8 or 12 years time.
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Surely this must be the worst? i was only a kid under thatcher but my understanding is they were never this pathetic
 
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