UK Politics General Discussion

[rob666]

Has anyone got a sense of fatigue about this whole campaign?

No.
I enjoy political bloodbaths, and the tories are trying to beat themselves up while losing the election.
Wonderful stuff.

 

[WillPS]

But there will likely be a low turnout. There's little positivity in the system or for the future direction of the country afterwards. I've found myself now being more interested in the drama of the election night itself, the first Labour budget, and the future fate of the Conservative party than I am about the rest of the campaign which now seems pretty pointless to me. I think most people just want the nightmare to end and the world to move on now.

Same, 100%. Very excited for election night, everything between now and then less so.

There is another head to head debate this week btw: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020kzp

 

[Benzin]

I think build ups are always fairly dull. But not helped by the incumbents being full defeatist mode which is unsurprisingly turning more away from themselves.

Hopefully the betting scandal implicates a few more idiotic MPs.

 

[GaryH]

I find it bizarre that I’ve had not one person from any of the political parties knock the door and try and persuade me. Given the projected losses for the Tories I would have thought at least one of them would be canvassing.

 

[Ryan]

Some really surprising results, and shows just how toxic the Conservative brand is at the moment.

I think the brand toxicity issue is surprising the Tories.

They appear to keep changing tack, pumping out different ideas, the ideas twist and change day by day...and none are landing - but this doesn't feel like an election based on policy, or political leanings - it's almost certainly focused entirely on competency.

The Tories can say "we're going to work towards making this happen".....ok, says the UK...

But

1. Are you being honest about that intention?
2. Do you have the ability to achieve it?

The clock has run out for this government to show evidence that the answer is yes to either of those questions. Their honesty and ability are very much in question with a huge swathe of the nation, of all political persuasions, even amongst previous members, supporters, donors and voters.

I'm amazed that the GE was called when it was, when it seemed like the Tories hadn't actually achieved anything of merit in recent months. I also think, and this might be me being a weirdo, that the start of summer is the one time of every year since, that COVID lockdowns have popped into my head. And it still stings, and still make me detest how the Tories see themselves compared to us, the little people.

I don't know, it all feels very kamikaze.

 

[Matt N]

I find it bizarre that I’ve had not one person from any of the political parties knock the door and try and persuade me. Given the projected losses for the Tories I would have thought at least one of them would be canvassing.

No one’s knocked on my door here, but I’ve had a fair bit of campaign literature. The Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and Reform have all sent campaign letters through the door.

Bizarrely, I haven’t yet had anything from the local Green candidate. I find that surprising given that he’s normally quite a vocal campaigner in elections, in terms of leaflets at least.

 

[Mick]

I’ve had plenty of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem stuff pushed through the door, nothing from Reform mind, I assume they’re using all their campaign budget on social media bots…

Had nobody knocking on my door though which I’m certainly not complaining about, although would make a nice change from the bloody Hello Fresh salesmen.

 

[WillPS]

No one’s knocked on my door here, but I’ve had a fair bit of campaign literature. The Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and Reform have all sent campaign letters through the door.

Bizarrely, I haven’t yet had anything from the local Green candidate. I find that surprising given that he’s normally quite a vocal campaigner in elections, in terms of leaflets at least.

The Greens are ruthlesslessly focussing all of their very limited resource on the 4 seats they have any hope of winning - Brighton Pavillion, Bristol Central, Waveney Valley (which is a new constituencey straddling Norfolk/Suffolk) and North Herefordshire. Anything you get from the Green's outside of those areas will be funded and paid for by the local party/candidate, most of whom have literally no money at all.

It's a reasonable approach.

 

[Alsty]

We've had a leaflet through the door here for a local party called the Heritage Party. I think it could give Reform a run for its money.

It's full of dog-whistling bullshit such as stopping our schools from "indoctrinating our kids with gender ideologies".

As we all know, teaching gender ideology is a major part of the curriculum and our teachers do nothing except teach wokism...

I'm tempted to contact our candidate to say our kids haven't been learning about that but have been learning about Arabic numbers instead, and see what he comes back with.

 

[jon81uk]

I find it bizarre that I’ve had not one person from any of the political parties knock the door and try and persuade me. Given the projected losses for the Tories I would have thought at least one of them would be canvassing.

The Conservatives are short of people on the ground to do door knocking, they lost a lot of councillors at the local elections last month who would normally help with campaigning.


I think all the leaflets I've had have been delivered by Royal Mail, not certain they have been direct delivered by any party. Reform have messed up their targeting, their leaflet definitely came by Royal Mail but its got the details for the neighbouring constituency. Got that leaflet twice showing the wrong constituency and therefore wrong candidate, which seems about the right level of incompetency for Reform.

 

[Leigh]

We've had a leaflet through the door here for a local party called the Heritage Party. I think it could give Reform a run for its money.

It's full of dog-whistling bullshit such as stopping our schools from "indoctrinating our kids with gender ideologies".

As we all know, teaching gender ideology is a major part of the curriculum and our teachers do nothing except teach wokism...

I'm tempted to contact our candidate to say our kids haven't been learning about that but have been learning about Arabic numbers instead, and see what he comes back with.

They are on the sheet for my constituency as well. Never heard a word about them but from what you’ve said there they seem to make Reform look moderate…

 

[Jonathan]

They are on the sheet for my constituency as well. Never heard a word about them but from what you’ve said there they seem to make Reform look moderate…

Well, the Heritage Party has roots in UKIP, so I'm not hugely shocked.

 

[Ryan]

Well, the Heritage Party has roots in UKIP, so I'm not hugely shocked.

They're absolute loons.

No sex education until after the age of consent has been reached. Genius.

Turning off all 5G infrastructure overnight.
Genius.

 

[Jonathan]

They're absolute loons.

No sex education until after the age of consent has been reached. Genius.

Turning off all 5G infrastructure overnight.
Genius.

Calling them loons is one way of putting it. Might need to go to the Tavern to exhibit our true thoughts on them...

 

[The Big Mack]

Honestly... John Wardley's leather jacket is more deserving of Prime Minister than any of these tools.

But since we have to chuck out the Tories, then Labour or the Lib Dems are probably the parties to vote for (the latter won't win of course, but they do have the more heartwarming policies).

 

[Matt.GC]

I can completely understand the logic of calling the election now. For reasons I've outlined already, going now was by far and away their best chance of saving some seats.

I'm just surprised at how bad the campaign has gone for the Tories. It was inevitable that they wouldn't be listened to as I think people have already made their minds up in regard to not wanting to vote for them. But it looks like from early doors the strategy was to try and shore up the core vote as much as possible to avoid catastrophe, which was probably a good strategy on paper.

Even a few days ago, I would rightly have expected the spotlight and scrutiny to be on the party who are now a shoe in to win. But instead, the debate is dominated about an unprecedented "supermajority", the continued existence of the conservative party, and a betting scandal. Debate about policy is being drowned out.

 

[IanB]

Only had a Labour leaflet here, worth noting in Rotherham, the Labour MP voted for Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, so it’s a bit rich for her to blame the conservatives for the economic mess when she voted in favour of something which played a part in it.

No conservative MP is standing in Rotherham either, so not really much choice or much difference my vote will make.

 

[rob666]

All the main parties get the right to one leaflet through your usual post delivery.

But one of my punters doesn't even have a letterbox any more!

 

[BarryZola]

Probably called it early so that Sunak's whole family can jet off somewhere and the kids will be ready for the start of a new school year. Call it later and still lose anyway and the kids are half-way through a school/college year which is not ideal. They've probably all had enough and realise they'll certainly lose anyway so why hang in there and put the rest of your lives on hold for no reason and prolong the ridicule? Wouldn't surprise me if it's as simple as something like that.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Probably called it early so that Sunak's whole family can jet off somewhere and the kids will be ready for the start of a new school year. Call it later and still lose anyway and the kids are half-way through a school/college year which is not ideal. They've probably all had enough and realise they'll certainly lose anyway so why hang in there and put the rest of your lives on hold for no reason and prolong the ridicule? Wouldn't surprise me if it's as simple as something like that.

A rather convoluted way of attempting to avoid 20% VAT on public school fees, but he has always been rather self serving.