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UK Politics General Discussion

What will be the result of the UK’s General Election?

  • Conservative Majority

    Votes: 3 2.5%

  • Conversative Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • Labour Majority

    Votes: 87 72.5%

  • Labour Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 28 23.3%

  • Other Result (Please specify in your post)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    120
  • Poll closed .
I think the fact that some people are surprised and/or shocked at how quickly and efficiently Starmer has got to work on implementing his plans for change just shows that we've become so used to a laughing stock of a government for far too long. We actually have some competent people in charge now, things are being done in the manner that they should be, it's just not something we are used to in this country.

Certainly is a breath of fresh air!
 
Another thing that parties should think about is how much these MPs do for the local area. Take my constituency as an example, my former MP was a Conservative. I disagreed with his defence about Partygate, but other than that he was generally a very decent local MP. Always visible in the town and refused to be drawn into the infighting within the larger party. Most polls had him barely getting 20% of the vote in Darlington, however the result was very different:

1000008089.jpgI hope all parties take note for future elections that having local candidates that represents your constituency can really pull in your vote. Parachuting candidates from one side of the country to another to save yourself a spot in the Commons is wrong. We need local voices to represent the area, not some randomer who's seen in the town once or twice a month on a Thursday.

I also hope MPs take note to remember that they're first and foremost in the Commons to represent their constituency, not to push forward a single issue like Farage, or for the pro Gaza independent candidates or former MP George Galloway. Or to further their own political carrier by doing nothing but stoke up culture war rubbish.

Sure they may have won off the back of a percentage of constituents, but once that's over their job is to represent every single one of them. It's something my former MP on the whole did very well, but a role which has recently often been forgotten by many others. I feel that will be the undoing for the Tices and Farages of this world.
 
Dobba said:
Oh god what are they pretending GB Energy is this week?
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It'd be fantastic if you could contribute to the debate with some actual discussion. Simply constantly posting sarcastic questions is becoming pretty boring and tiresome.

There is barely any money in the public purse for a whole lot at present, especially a wholly publicly owned energy company. Imagining that can be done from scratch from generation to supply is crazy at present. And no, we can't just nationalise everything in an instant because that would cost a fortune too.

Attracting private investment and coordinating that centrally is a sensible option. Obviously that should come with the caveat of correcting the mistakes from the previous PFI deals, by carefully considering contractual limits on say profits and any future charges.

We've got to service the massive public debt we already have, and only take on more when we have the growth to do so. It's a careful balancing act, and we've seen what happens when a government just swings into spending huge amounts or cutting tax a la Liz Truss. Higher interest rates for consumers and bond prices going to thr dogs again isn't helpful for why of us. Hopefully once we're on a much more stable footing, that market panic won't be as pronounced, but at present I feel they're doing the best option we've got.
 
Craig said:
It'd be fantastic if you could contribute to the debate with some actual discussion. Simply constantly posting sarcastic questions is becoming pretty boring and tiresome.

There is barely any money in the public purse for a whole lot at present, especially a wholly publicly owned energy company. Imagining that can be done from scratch from generation to supply is crazy at present. And no, we can't just nationalise everything in an instant because that would cost a fortune too.

Attracting private investment and coordinating that centrally is a sensible option. Obviously that should come with the caveat of correcting the mistakes from the previous PFI deals, by carefully considering contractual limits on say profits and any future charges.
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Which is odd considering that is exactly what the two most important people in the party/government both described it as during the election campaign.


From: https://twitter.com/RachelReevesMP/status/1803311583826731112


From: https://twitter.com/moleyhtfc/status/1806361118815994170


So like I asked, what are they pretending it is this week?
 
I don't see anywhere that says GB Energy will carry out their own generation, supply and billing of customers? Personally I've always believed it was what it is - and investment vehicle using the money to assist in coordinating and generating further creation of clean energy for the UK. That investment then being paid back to the public in the shape of lower bills and perhaps some of the profits. I'll await further detail in future, but I'm not seeing any confusion, just assumptions being made.
 
Craig said:
I don't see anywhere that says GB Energy will carry out their own generation, supply and billing of customers? Personally I've always believed it was what it is - and investment vehicle using the money to assist in coordinating and generating further creation of clean energy for the UK. That investment then being paid back to the public in the shape of lower bills and perhaps some of the profits. I'll await further detail in future, but I'm not seeing any confusion, just assumptions being made.
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Hands up, you've got me there. Oh no, hang on.


From: https://twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1803032513394164219


Or if you prefer it in text form, page 14 in terms of the PDF (10 accoring to the page numbers), of the literature the party put out in March of this year explaining what the policy is describes GB Energy as: "a new, publicly-owned clean generation company, that will harness the power of Britain’s sun, wind, and waves to cut energy bills and deliver energy security for our country."

So again, what are they pretending it is this week? So far you've told me it has never a 'publicly owned energy company' nor a 'publicly owned energy generation company', despite the party describing it as being both (and as 'an investment vehicle' the one time Starmer was called out directly asking what the policy was, which was about a fortnight before he decided it was a 'publicly owned energy company' again during that Sky News leaders debate) just since March.
 
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A sovereign nation (one of the richest in the world) with its own central bank and own currency, can afford to nationalise revenue generating key infrastructure, and not doing so is pure ideology, not practicality. They're choosing to bring back PFI because that's what they believe in.
 
I still see a clean generation company as an investment vehicle as intended. In exactly the same way as the likes of Octopus do the same.

Look I'd absolutely love for utilities to be nationalised, just like transport too. But we've got to be realistic with the money that we have. Sovereign nation or not, we've still got huge amounts of debt to service and plenty of other things to be spending money on. The cost of servicing that debt is dependent on us being a stable government. I'd rather we go careful over forking out billions and billions as soon as Labour are in power.
 
Martin said:
A sovereign nation (one of the richest in the world) with its own central bank and own currency, can afford to nationalise revenue generating key infrastructure, and not doing so is pure ideology, not practicality. They're choosing to bring back PFI because that's what they believe in.
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And they also know the public remember PFI the first time around, hence Starmer and co lying about it being a publicly owned energy company/energy generation company rather than telling people it's just PFI again.

But it's a different sort of lie compared to Johnson's 40 new hospitals because of something, reasons and stuff.
 
The debt that would be accrued from nationalising energy would be to the Bank of England, and would be guaranteed to be paid off because everyone needs energy. That's not debt in the same way as me getting a loan from Halifax. Or they could actually tax these multi multi multi billionaires and fund it that way. Regardless, having real nationalised control over energy from production to end usage should absolutely be a priority for many reasons.

It isn't quite as simple as just making money up yes but countries don't operate like household budgets and pretending that they do is what the tories have been doing for 14 years, using a joke post-it note as the excuse.

The approach at the moment seems to just be to wait for the private sector to make more money without the state creating any more infrastructure to allow that, as if private companies just weren't bothering to make peofit before... except to do the odd bit of PFI which was a disaster last time and will be again.
 
For what it’s worth, I do think we should be bolder and borrow more, and I hope that we have a stepping stone to that in the future. But we can’t ignore the rest of the country’s problems just to nationalise the whole energy sector. The sheer cost of that would be absolutely beyond astronomical. It was a massive mistake to do it in the first place, but we are where we are.

Of course borrowing on a national scale is different to getting a loan, but at the same time we shouldn’t forget the wider effect that it has. We saw that from the shock caused by the “mini budget”, and we shouldn’t forget that we have a trade deficit. Devalue Sterling through borrowing more, and everything jumps up in price anyway. Like it or lump it, we’re so intertwined with everyone globally that 6th richest nation or not, every action has a reaction, and we need to be seriously mindful of that considering how close to the brink of losing a shed load of people’s pensions as we were with Truss.

I’m not an outright supporter of PFI style stuff, and I do have concerns about utilising it. Which is why I did say that once we see the detail, I hope to see protections in place to prevent getting the issues we had previously. It’d be a lovely world if we could nationalise everything, but we need to be realistic as to what’s achievable considering the state things are in at present and the relative speed needed to start fixing it.

Softly softly is boring, but it’s what we need right now with everything going on in the UK and globally - at least for a little while.
 
I'm guessing the contracts for water/energy stuff is far more complex in terms of renewals compared to the rail?

Since sounds like all rail will be nationalised in 2/3 years as the contracts expire. But presumably the utilities are longer term and more problematic.
 
Benzin said:
I'm guessing the contracts for water/energy stuff is far more complex in terms of renewals compared to the rail?

Since sounds like all rail will be nationalised in 2/3 years as the contracts expire. But presumably the utilities are longer term and more problematic.
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Railways were privatised, but the operation of the routes were franchised, meaning they’re up for renewal on a regular basis so have been able to be taken back to public ownership through an operator of last resort. The rolling stock companies were outright sold off, which is the same with the utility companies unfortunately, so not a contracted length and would have to be bought back at no doubt silly prices.
 
To be fair on the Tories, they didn't hang about as soon as they got elected in 2010 either. Within weeks, workers had no right to tribunal until after 2 years of service, the rich got a 5% tax cut, and public spending was slashed.
 
Well this is intriguing at the very least. It'll either end up being something, or nothing at all, but the fact I'm not the least bit surprised pretty much sums up how I feel about Reform UK.

Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people:
www.theguardian.com

Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people

Doubt raised about election hopefuls who stood without providing photos, biographies or contact details
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
pluk said:
Depends if you are looking at seats or vote share as an indication on future elections.
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Seats mean everything though, as we all know...they get governments elected.
Vote share means zero, it is only measured for statistical analysis to show the fptp distortion.
Nobody ever formed a government on the majority of votes cast.
 
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