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UK politics general discussion
- Thread starter Craig
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Benzin
TS Member
There was also the anti-semitism within the party (whether it was down to Corbyn or not I'm not truly sure, and of course there's a fantastic irony of right wingers calling that out whilst them following up with "All Lives Matter").
Hatchet job from the press put a lot of the middle ground off him. Communist and claims of taking Britain back to the 70s (again, ironic given the current situation) lead that charge.
I didn't particularly like him as he tended to sit on the fence and rarely took advantage of the open political goals he was given. The cult-like reverence of him internally also lead to various splits and divides internally (and still somewhat sticks).
On a manifesto basis, people loved it. However put Corbyn to them and there was no interest. Boris was the perfect opponent to that on top of his Brexit related promises.
Hatchet job from the press put a lot of the middle ground off him. Communist and claims of taking Britain back to the 70s (again, ironic given the current situation) lead that charge.
I didn't particularly like him as he tended to sit on the fence and rarely took advantage of the open political goals he was given. The cult-like reverence of him internally also lead to various splits and divides internally (and still somewhat sticks).
On a manifesto basis, people loved it. However put Corbyn to them and there was no interest. Boris was the perfect opponent to that on top of his Brexit related promises.
jon81uk
TS Member
Also the local radio presenters know their local area so can ask questions about the local hospital or fracking in the local area and she wasn't prepared for that.
Her team obviously though local radio would be easy, but radio 4 would have probably proved easier as the questions wouldn't have been as specific.
Matt.GC
TS Member
She's tried to hide away on local radio. It appears she's avoiding all the main national outlets but the gravity of the situation means she probably wouldn't have been safe on Talk Sport or being interviewed by The Beano.
She answered no questions, didn't address any concerns and just repeated the same nonsense she's be spouting for weeks now. When she was being grilled in her last interview, she was interrupted by the interviewer who said "Prime Minister this is the same scripted response you've given to all the local BBC radio stations this morning".
Despite overwhelming evidence against her policies, she's burying her head in the sand.
She answered no questions, didn't address any concerns and just repeated the same nonsense she's be spouting for weeks now. When she was being grilled in her last interview, she was interrupted by the interviewer who said "Prime Minister this is the same scripted response you've given to all the local BBC radio stations this morning".
Despite overwhelming evidence against her policies, she's burying her head in the sand.
Benzin
TS Member
This has been Tory policy for ages. Just repeat the party line in any interview and hope that they just accept it as an answer even if it isn't.
Hence why anytime some MP has been remotely questioned it goes wrong for them.
Or hide in a fridge. That works too.
That’s a hard one to answer, if there was a GE tomorrow I don’t know what I would do.
I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Truss or Starmer.
But there isn’t going to be, it will be at least 2 years before a GE and by then the political landscape could look very different.
By then will Truss have survived? We will also know how Labour are going to fund all of these promises, they might not be as popular then, there’s also an outside chance that Truss’s plan works, unlikely but non of us have a crystal ball.
It’s also possible Putin has blown us all up by then so it’s not that I’m shrugging my shoulders I just don't worry about things I can’t change.
Which promise? They've promised very little but costed what little they have.
Hang on a tic, a couple of pages back you were telling the forum that you vote for an MP rather than a PM. Which is it?
Matt.GC
TS Member
I'm also genuinely interested to how you've come this conclusion so far? I 100% get why old school Tory supporters want tax cuts for the rich and the pursuit of Thatcherite policies. I bitterly disagree with that position but I'm grown up enough at this stage to understand that this is the view of some people.
But do you not think that everything has now gone well beyond this stage? Has politics, old allegiances and fanboyism (including those of the left) now gone well beyond everything else at this point? Is this not now about trust in the wake of Johnson and competence with Truss.
Even if I hated Labour, everything they ever stood for and generally everything about them, I would prefer to spoil my ballot paper or vote for some weirdo independent than vote for the current administration. A Tory MP was asked anonymously today for their opinion on the situation and their response was something along the lines of "I haven't been paying much attention to the situation. I've been busy looking for alternative work, looking at my mortgage and reviewing whether my pensions are safe or not".
Do you not think this has now gone way beyond party politics? Even if you hate Labour and think their spending plans are ridiculous, has it now simply not become a case of making the best of a bad job?
I'm genuinely interested by the way, and I hate the Tories and most of what they've done in my lifetime so much that I can't ever conceive a situation in which I'd ever vote for them. But if a Labour government had acted anywhere near as irresponsibly as this government has between 2019 and the current day, I'd be scrambling to vote for almost anyone other than them at the next election.
Is this not now about the respect for our democracy, institutions, the seat of government, trust and competence at this point?
In the last two elections I have voted green, the only party that appears not to be driven by greed, or split by internal division.
In my constituency I have zero chance of electing an MP, but there are no decent alternatives.
Over the last few years, Tory politicians have turned the nation into the clown of all nations, we have become the laughing stock of the world.
In my constituency I have zero chance of electing an MP, but there are no decent alternatives.
Over the last few years, Tory politicians have turned the nation into the clown of all nations, we have become the laughing stock of the world.
Yea that was a slip of the keyboard, it should of been Tory or Labour, not Truss or Starmer.
They have promised a lot this week and costed very little, you think setting up a green energy company will be cheap?
It won’t pay for itself for years if ever due to the “green” part, nothing wrong with renewables but energy producers have a balanced portfolio to make the huge profits they are making.
Yes I do want tax cuts and small government, I believe in letting people decide where to spend their own money and free markets.
I hate socialism and the belief that government can run everything better, I can’t stand the politics of envy that the Labour Party have pushed for the last 5 or so years.
They voted to outlaw private schools at conference a couple of years ago, how is that anything other than a policy of envy? Punish middle earners for having dreams of bettering themselves, that seems to be Labour policy.
The current Tory administration have given the impression of incompetence and I think Truss is useless at every level but I agree with almost everything that was done in the mini budget last week, the mistake was timing and doing it all together, it was a rush job and that’s what panicked the market.
I would have done more personally like move the 40% tax bracket up to around 80k and then increased that bracket to 45%, or actually had a complete rethink of the tax system and merge national insurance and income tax but then this was only a “mini budget”.
Incidentally the one thing that Truss and Co. might have achieved is bursting the housing bubble, surely bringing house prices down to sensible levels that people can afford is a good thing? (I’m not sure that was the intention though)
BarryZola
TS Member
Good point about housing, but not one I completely agree with. I don't think that the bubble will burst or that we will see a crash. Maybe a slight pull-back of around 5% or simply that they'll stall for a couple of years before continuing to rise. At the end of the day it's a supply and demand issue and the supply has been way behind demand for a long time now and only a massive MASSIVE program of fast house building projects will change that, but that shows no signs of happening.
Nick🎢
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Spinball Whizzer
The way the house builders operate with this is problematic. They buy up available, viable land and sit on it (for value growth and to prevent rivals creating competition). They then drip feed houses onto the market at a very purposeful rate to keep buyers almost competing to get one (pushing up prices). I have seen a local project remove houses from sale when the buying rate dropped off to only bring them back at a higher price three months later.
They also do shady things to avoid responsibilities. For instance there is a development a few miles away that is split across two builders (on the face of it, sharing the love - what a nice story). When you look into it these two builders are part of the same group. They build identical models of houses with different names. Why? Because this means they are not building enough houses to become responsible for adding local facilities like schools and DRs!
They are just doing whatever they legally can to minimise cost and maximise profit - that is their job after all. But it has an impact on the market!
Interest rates will cap what is affordable to borrow for many and that will have an impact on prices. If you apply an SMA we are still totally in a bubble but it remains to be seen what impact current events will have. The market is already slowing down significantly according to people I know in the business.
jon81uk
TS Member
Given they removed stamp duty I don’t think they were trying to do anything to change the housing market.
Also dropping prices by making houses unaffordable for people who already own them by raising interest rates dramatically probably isn’t the best way to go about it.
Great British Energy: what is it, what would it do and how would it be funded?
The details behind Keir Starmer’s pledge to launch a publicly owned energy company when Labour take power
There is a cost to not doing it too, of course. Relying on the free market to provide us with reliable, affordable energy is proven to be folly.
Which direction would you like to throw shade in next?
Matt.GC
TS Member
The fact that you've just gone on some old fashioned and, frankly, irrelevant ideological tangent means that you either didn't read my post in full or don't understand the gravity of just what's happened. Whilst you're talking about the "politics of Envy" and moments of madness at Labour party conferences, with the pros and cons of high house prices thrown in for good measure, the country is in complete and utter crisis.
I could go on about what's happened but I don't need to repeat what almost everyone from the IMF to every living economist on the planet is saying because access the facts are more abundant than air molecules. At this point, I think deep down even Liz Truss herself is desperately hoping that her Get Out Of Jail Free card (and best case scenario) is that her own MP's will vote her down. Just imagine what a lucky escape that will be for her?
This reminds me of that scene in Titanic where they were asking if there were First Class seats on the Lifeboats. Or that scene in Threads where they were debating football results in the pub whilst downplaying the news of the Nuclear warheads that were on their way.
Matt.GC
TS Member
You're asking me to explain the current economic crisis to you even though almost all of us can't even unlock our phone screens without it being force fed to us? I'm confused, is this a genuine question?