• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

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 .
Matt N said:
I do think the unavoidable truth is that taxes will need to rise if we want to avoid benefit and services cuts at this point, however. The money needs to come from somewhere, and I honestly think tax rises might be less politically toxic at this point than some of the other changes proposed by Starmer and Reeves.
Click to expand...
I'm fine with taxes going up. I like my public services. I'm paying far too little. Tax is cool.

Kier Starmer's fundamental issue is that he is not fundamental. He doesn't believe in anything. He doesn't even appear to be thinking critically.
Matt N said:
Indeed, when Starmer himself ran for the leadership, he did so on a surprisingly left-wing platform. But he quickly seemed to abandon this when he won the leadership.
Click to expand...
It's upsetting that on most of these pledges he's taken the polar opposite view in government.

1000019350.png
 
I can’t quite decide if Keir Starmer’s lack of conviction makes him pragmatic and willing to read the room or spineless and just willing to say whatever gets him a victory.

I do think being willing to change your mind is an admirable quality, but it is hard to tell what Starmer stands for, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing in a politician.

I admit that I myself don’t have overly strong political convictions. I find politics interesting, but I’m not an especially political person myself, and if I were a politician, I would almost certainly make contradictory comments at times. That, however, is exactly why I have never been involved in politics, have never pursued it as a career and know I would make a terrible politician!

I think being overly ideological is maybe a flaw in a politician in that you can become so wedded to that ideology that you overlook its most gaping flaws and pursue it above all else (see Liz Truss), but I also think lacking any kind of conviction is almost equally flawed in that it makes it difficult for people to know what you actually stand for.
 
Squiggs said:
Well he's hardly reading the room, is he?
Click to expand...
To be fair, he does seem to be attempting to carve out policy in the direction that the wider electorate wants him to go in. A lot of recent policy is an attempt to stave off Reform.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
I'm fine with taxes going up. I like my public services. I'm paying far too little. Tax is cool...
Click to expand...
Me and you both, but we are now in a minority.
All those lovely Thatcher years, with "Greed is Good", "Family Is All", and "Screw the Rest", because there is "No Such Thing As Society", means we are now screwed as a civilised state.

The division between haves and have nots has widened, the haves no longer want to pay their share...because the have nots don't deserve support from the state.
 
4 years until a general election, with no real opposition. It's how they use that capital between now and then.

I still think Starmer and Reeves are incredibly practicable people, and not really believing in anything is fine by me. We don't need a lot of ideologically driven nonsense right now. That's what got us into this mess in the first place.

But this wasted and damaging first year is neither. The benefits system needs reforming, but policy built around an arbitrary savings targets is bad policy. This was never going to wash. They've shown weakness to their own MP's, weakness to Farage, and weakness to the electorate.

With such a long time to go and no realistic alternative, there's a massive chance to give the country the unpleasant medicine it needs, and show the electorate that it's a choice between pragmatism and fantasy sat on the other branches. But the longer they deny that tax rises were inevitable and wed themselves to these silly election promises, the harder it will be. The time to do ditch the nonsense was a year ago, it's harder now.

Thatcher came out smelling of roses in 1983 after intense unpopularity during her first year. She liked a good fallout with her chancellors as well, and also benefited from fragmented and weak opposition. But her arrogance brought consistency. Starmer looks erratic, inconsistent, and weak. Coming out guns blazing and drawing the line here is his only option now. It can be done, but it'll involve:

- Ditching those absurd "no tax rises on working people" election promises that no one believed anyway.

- Ignoring Farage. That keeps the media spotlight on scrutinising Reform. And other than populist guff, they have no solutions. Only now they have some big councils and regional mayoralties to run with massive problematic in-trays and no plan.

-Sacking advisors. Will show a line in the sand has been drawn. And seriously, who is advising this guy? He's clearly surrounded himself with incompetence.

-Turning a blind eye to the attention seeking cries from a right wing press with a declining reach. The people who still suck up this nonsense are already going to Reform or sticking to their Tory loyalties out of misguided 'tradition'. Let them worry about staving off the decline of their business models, he has a country in decline to worry about.

-Flopping it out on the cabinet table. "This is what we're doing, you won't like it, but this is why, and get it right and your constituents will thank you for it".

He seems like he started off in the practical silo, before immersing himself in the Westminster one, taking his eye off of the real problems and neglecting his party.
 
I also don't know what he stands for - if he were beach-wear he'd be a flip-flop. The U-turns on unpopular/badly thought out measures has lost him so much credibility, and each time he puts the blame on Reeves. As for tax, I pay enough thanks. Plenty of people I know who are £100k+ earners and either stuffing their pensions or - when that's not enough - deciding on a 4-day week rather than pay 62.5% at £100k then 45% afterwards.

I'm no Labour supporter, but Andy Burnham would be a credible figure - Rayner would be forever putting her foot in her foghorn.
 
Well it depends on who came up with the ideas and who decided on the U-turns. Who's taking responsibility for these?? It isn't Keir!

There might have been a slight Rep-Reeve for Rachel, but I don't think it's for long. I don't see how she will keep her self-imposed fiscal rules at the Autumn statement, so better she goes before instead of afterwards. But that's only my guess....!
 
It would seem as though former Labour MP Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn are joining forces to form a new, as yet unnamed, left-wing political party: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en..._6866d881e4b0225e8f8bef4d?ncid=APPLENEWS00001

Corbyn did have somewhat of a cult following at the peak of his popularity, and I guess him offering a left-wing alternative could take a small number of protest votes from Reform, but I think Labour and the existing left-wing parties would likely have more to lose from Corbyn starting a new party than Reform.

I don’t feel that more fragmentation is what the left-wing political cause needs in the face of Reform. I do think the left-wing cause would do better if it were to unite and fall into line behind a larger cause, as it did so successfully in 2024 and the right did so successfully in 2019. If the left becomes too fragmented, the Tories and/or Reform will enter No 10. The question is; would the left really rather allow a party that it wholly disagrees with to get in than one it 80% agrees with just for the sake of the missing 20%?
 
The ability of Liberal Left (the most dangerous, unintelligent, and least successful combination in politics) to shoot itself in the foot never ceases to amaze me. Yet another split of support and voter base does nothing to seriously contend with the 'enemy' they claim to oppose.
 
Smiley said:
Well it depends on who came up with the ideas and who decided on the U-turns. Who's taking responsibility for these?? It isn't Keir!

There might have been a slight Rep-Reeve for Rachel, but I don't think it's for long. I don't see how she will keep her self-imposed fiscal rules at the Autumn statement, so better she goes before instead of afterwards. But that's only my guess....!
Click to expand...
But you have already said she is gone by the end of the week.
Which one is it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top