Westminster Politics

TwoSheds said:
:lol: Blair had to doctor an intelligence dossier to be released to the public to justify (a second!) illegal war FFS. There's also accounts of him being the one that persuaded Bush to go to war. It's a bit of an "I slipped over and fell arse first on to the ketchup bottle...again" to claim you had no agency in that!
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Jesus spoke to Tony Blair personally and told him to bomb a birth defects crisis into several generations of Iraqi children.
 
Dobba said:
Jesus spoke to Tony Blair personally and told him to bomb a birth defects crisis into several generations of Iraqi children.
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It's called white memory syndrome. It's the only way to handle centuries of apartheids and genocides, including current ones. Let it happen then doctor the history later.

And then say something about learning from history - which we just doctored of course.
 
Dumbstar said:
It's called white memory syndrome. It's the only way to handle centuries of apartheids and genocides, including current ones. Let it happen then doctor the history later.

And then say something about learning from history - which we just doctored of course.
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When did you become so racist on the forum? keep seeing it. Bit troubling.
 
TheReligion said:
When did you become so racist on the forum? keep seeing it. Bit troubling.
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If there's any racism involved in what I said the poster I replied to can report me. In fact, you can report me. Mods going through these pages will infract or ban me.
 
Dumbstar said:
If there's any racism involved in what I said the poster I replied to can report me. In fact, you can report me. Mods going through these pages will infract or ban me.
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I just recall you constantly bringing race in to discussions for some reason. You’ve been pulled a few times on it from memory.

What’s your deal?
 
I have no enthusiasm for Labour, and find them to be underwhelming , vacuous and uninspiring. But ultimately the Tories are so dangerous and so incompetent across the board, getting them out at the next election is just too important IMO. Another 5 years of Tory rule and chaos would be uttterly catastrophic for the country, public services etc. Plus I like my local Labour MP, and so am happy to vote for him personally. It's sad reality of British politics that many voters couldn't name who their local MP is without looking it up.

I wasn't old enough to remember the Tories being booted out in 1997 properly, but back then they had least had serious people like John Major and Ken Clarke at the helm. Clearly they were ndeeply unpopular given the scale of the defeat, but I can't imagine Major and Clarke were anywhere near as bad as the current Tory hierachy.
 
The Rwanda fiasco will be what puts Labour in power. If they’d thrown a dart at a board of Immigration policies and hit anything other than Rwanda you’d think they might still have a chance. Reform voters are done with the Tories and it’s not a protest on this occasion. The recession announcement was perfectly timed this week, as morbid as that is. Vocal social accounts within that part of the electorate are even reflecting on how everything else besides immigration is also a mess so if the Tories can’t be trusted on immigration they’re is literally nothing left for them. It’s mostly echo chamber bed wetting as I think they’re starting to realise that outside of their online bubble where their views are amplified and encouraged there are tens of millions of regular folks who are just ready for a change - it’s inevitable.
 
The Tories have completely snookered themselves on immigration.

Even dating back to when Cameron was their leader then and PM and May was their shadow home secretary and then home secretary, they've set completely unrealistic and unachieveable immigration targets, to keep their back-benchers, swivelled eye loon grass roots members and the gruesome, xenophobic right wing media outlets happy.

Their inevitable and repeated failure to come close to meeting their own targets, has angered many people on the right of the political spectrum that have supported them in the past. And of course the people on the left and centre of the spectrum that have despised their nasty rhetoric over the years (and to repeat that dates back to when Cameron was the PM and May was the home home secretary), me being one of them, are not going forgive them.

Reform want them to smashed to pieces at the next GE, so that they can influence their post-election rebuild. They'll be no pact, standing down of candidates as with the Brexit party in 2019 etc, that's for sure.
 
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Ady87 said:
At the age of 36, the Tories have been in power since the minute I really started to care about politics. I did beforehand and voted but I’m talking meaningful interest.

I'm going to stay up, watch and enjoy every single second of the next general election coverage. What a night that will be.
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Im also 36 and it feels like our entire generation (and others) are now just completely lost to the tories. I can’t see myself ever voting for them. I don’t see how they recover from this and how they can possibly win back this section of the electorate.
 
Ady87 said:
At the age of 36, the Tories have been in power since the minute I really started to care about politics. I did beforehand and voted but I’m talking meaningful interest.

I'm going to stay up, watch and enjoy every single second of the next general election coverage. What a night that will be.
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As long as you are not a Tory supporter.
 
Walrus said:
Im also 36 and it feels like our entire generation (and others) are now just completely lost to the tories. I can’t see myself ever voting for them. I don’t see how they recover from this and how they can possibly win back this section of the electorate.
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You will be surprised.
I am exactly double your age and politics is cyclic.
Hopefully Labour will win the next GE. But the problems they will be facing are massive. And the resources to address them are limited.
So it will come down to priorities. And no 2 people will agree on those priorities.
So they will become progressively dissatisfied and a new cycle will start.

That is the reality.
 
Buster15 said:
You will be surprised.
I am exactly double your age and politics is cyclic.
Hopefully Labour will win the next GE. But the problems they will be facing are massive. And the resources to address them are limited.
So it will come down to priorities. And no 2 people will agree on those priorities.
So they will become progressively dissatisfied and a new cycle will start.

That is the reality.
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I had you as much older than that!
 
Buster15 said:
You will be surprised.
I am exactly double your age and politics is cyclic.
Hopefully Labour will win the next GE. But the problems they will be facing are massive. And the resources to address them are limited.
So it will come down to priorities. And no 2 people will agree on those priorities.
So they will become progressively dissatisfied and a new cycle will start.

That is the reality.
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I second that opinion, although I hope they can agree on at least two priorities, things which will have the same affect for millions of ordinary folk as the Education Act and the NHS Act did... but getting them to agree 3 will likely be a priority too far.
 
RoyH1 said:
That's pretty sad. So basically, unless there's huge protests with outbreaks of civil unrest, you're stuck with the Tories until they want to lose their jobs, right?
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Technically there is another option but it would never happen, the King has the ability to kick them out
 
Mr Pigeon said:
Scottish Labour backs motion for 'immediate ceasefire' in Gaza

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-68325563

Labour party up here obviously have a different position to the Labour party down there.
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At least they got the right leader in the end, but I still can’t believe that more Scottish Labour members voted for the useless and insignificant Richard Leonard to be leader back in 2017, instead of Anas Sarwar. That really was ridiculous stupidity, at a time when Scottish Labour were a grossly incompetent branch office, and had been for a long time beforehand.

Finally electing Sarwar as their leader a couple of years ago, was a long overdue step in the right direction, on the way back from the doldrums (it was entirely their own fault that they had declined so far and fast).
 
GuybrushThreepwood said:
I have no enthusiasm for Labour, and find them to be underwhelming , vacuous and uninspiring. But ultimately the Tories are so dangerous and so incompetent across the board, getting them out at the next election is just too important IMO. Another 5 years of Tory rule and chaos would be uttterly catastrophic for the country, public services etc. Plus I like my local Labour MP, and so am happy to vote for him personally. It's sad reality of British politics that many voters couldn't name who their local MP is without looking it up.

I wasn't old enough to remember the Tories being booted out in 1997 properly, but back then they had least had serious people like John Major and Ken Clarke at the helm. Clearly they were ndeeply unpopular given the scale of the defeat, but I can't imagine Major and Clarke were anywhere near as bad as the current Tory hierachy.
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I feel the same about Labour but underwhelming, vacuous and uninspiring is a definite upgrade on what we've had for years now.
Major and Clarke, whilst I disagreed with their politics, are a cut above anything the Tory party currently have, arguably any party. They were the last of the politicians to be regarded as "big beasts".
 
Reiver said:
I feel the same about Labour but underwhelming, vacuous and uninspiring is a definite upgrade on what we've had for years now.
Major and Clarke, whilst I disagreed with their politics, are a cut above anything the Tory party currently have, arguably any party. They were the last of the politicians to be regarded as "big beasts".
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Definitely. When it’s a ‘meh’ or even disappointing option in Labour vs. downright dangerous, institutionally corrupt, morally bankrupt and completely incompetent option in the Tories, it's a no-brainer for me. As an absolute worse case scenario, Labour if they win the next GE (I'm not prepared to say it's a done deal until I see an Exit poll) will be not particularly good in office but still nowhere near as bad as the Tories are and have been for the last 14 years. Now i certainly hope they'll be far better than that, and actually deliver numerous positive changes, but still I think the view that Labour governments are always better than the Tories one.

For example the worst thing that happened under a Labour government in my lifetime was the catostrophic decision to join in with the invasion of Iraq. I was 12 at the time and joined local (in Blackburn where the local MP Jack Straw was the foreign secretary at the time) and national protests against it, and still think it was a travesty. I'm not wanting to trivialising that. Had the Tories (who enthusiastically supported that decision) been in power at the time, not only would the UK still have gone along with Bush and joined the invasion, but there's a strong chance that they wouldn't have even tried to persuade him to seek a UN second resolution, and so it would have started even earlier. And of course unlike Labour, they wouldn't have significantly reduced child poverty, hospital waiting times, introduced the national minimum wage (which they opposed) etc.

I've seen the point raised that even if we hate what Thatcher stood for (I'm not old enough to remember or have lived through her time in power but with my political views I definiely would have been a very strong critic), she was a successful PM in terms of actually achieving her vision for the country (regardless of whether people like or dislike that vision). But the Tories since 2010 certainly can't say that - they've downright failed to deliver many of the things they've wanted.
 
TwoSheds said:
How was Iraq outside Blair's control? If you genuinely believe that you're unhinged. Same goes for Cameron with Brexit and Truss with whatever the feck that was. A competent and/or non-criminal leader doesn't make those mistakes. Problems of their own making. Small boats too tbh, shockingly enough closing the legal migration routes leads to illegal migration. He didn't start the calamitous handling of immigration but he is steering his small boat over the same cliff.
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I thought exactly the same. They were not faultless, they were instrumental.
 
MegadrivePerson said:
If the Tories drop to 1% of the seats at the next election I will laugh so hard I may end up in a coma!

Another Canada 93? Tory Sunak critics fear extinction-level election result | Conservatives | The Guardian
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I would love to see it but it won’t happen.

As a youngster I used to think that there was a silent majority of people who thought the same as me and it was just tribalism or the media that managed to get them to vote Tory.

It’s just not the case though, we live in a very conservative county and it’s embedded into people that way of thinking. Thats been embedded by the media for sure but that’s just the way it is. Most of the country are centre right. Most of the country will vote against their own interests because they only recognise voting in their own interests as also voting in the interests of other people and they absolutely do not like to do that. Especially when a lot of those people are a different colour to them or live in a council house and have four children.
 
I know there's a thread but wanted to put this here. The kind of people we are dealing with.
 
MegadrivePerson said:
If the Tories drop to 1% of the seats at the next election I will laugh so hard I may end up in a coma!

Another Canada 93? Tory Sunak critics fear extinction-level election result | Conservatives | The Guardian
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Pexbo said:
I would love to see it but it won’t happen.

As a youngster I used to think that there was a silent majority of people who thought the same as me and it was just tribalism or the media that managed to get them to vote Tory.

It’s just not the case though, we live in a very conservative county and it’s embedded into people that way of thinking. Thats been embedded by the media for sure but that’s just the way it is. Most of the country are centre right. Most of the country will vote against their own interests because they only recognise voting in their own interests as also voting in the interests of other people and they absolutely do not like to do that. Especially when a lot of those people are a different colour to them or live in a council house and have four children.
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A politician once explained how they approach demographics:

70% are considered stonewalled and will not change their opinion no matter how many times they're proven wrong (e.g. brexiters). These are rarely worth trying to win over in a polarised subject (but you risk of losing them to similar parties)

20% are opinionated and educated on politics and can be won over with good politics

10% are considered indifferent and will often will not even bother to vote.



Based on that it's highly unlikely that every single Tory will stop being a Tory, and they will always get a relatively strong percentage.


Hence why it's better to focus on the new generations if you want to win votes.
 
Eplel said:
A politician once explained how they approach demographics:

70% are considered stonewalled and will not change their opinion no matter how many times they're proven wrong (e.g. brexiters). These are rarely worth trying to win over in a polarised subject (but you risk of losing them to similar parties)

20% are opinionated and educated on politics and can be won over with good politics

10% are considered indifferent and will often will not even bother to vote.



Based on that it's highly unlikely that every single Tory will stop being a Tory, and they will always get a relatively strong percentage.


Hence why it's better to focus on the new generations if you want to win votes.
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Thinking only 10% are indifferent and 'often' will not even bother to vote does not fill me with confidence in their opinions to be honest.
 
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