General Election Thursday 4th July 2024

[slogen51]

I don't care who you voted for, Angela Rayner being a deputy prime minister is a terrifying thought. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn09xn9 ... 4032e#post

Also, the return of ed!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn09xn9 ... 36eef#post

Why is it terrifying? Give me three reasons.

1) Dianne Abbott
2) Jeremy Corbyn
3) something about a council house allegedly

But she is a conviction ( not convicted!) politician and that is something to be respected even if you can't agree with her.

[STN RAMP RAT]

I don't care who you voted for, Angela Rayner being a deputy prime minister is a terrifying thought.

Why? having lived through the Boris the clown and Truss murdering the economy nothing can be that bad. I am unclear why everyone is frightened about whats coming or maybe there are more tax evading multimillionares on the board than I thought.

As for housing, Labour need to sort out cartel of Tory supporting house builders, they are controlling the supply to keeping prices high and they are building the wrong sort of housing.

My village has more than doubled in size since 2000. The cheapest house in the latest development is 500K and they have avoided having to build any infrastructure, As a reult of this the local Tesco Express is now being resupplied five times a day as there is insufficent storage space within the shop for them to hold any stock.

[Condor68]

Sorry RAMP RAT I realise that costs matter but what bothers me about these villages / towns expanding is developer shows nice drawing with kids play areas shops etc. council passes it these things never get built council of whatever ilk dont have cojones to rip it down .No one thinks about sewage water supplies electricity gas invariably the councils pay for them.Dont know where you stay but about 600 yards form my house a mini estate on single storey buildings was built,along came phase two it got passed and up went 2 storey buildings between the originals and the sea.Dont know for sure but it seems if the original plans are passed any mods go through on the nod.We were short of medical facilities schools shops and everything else so the council allowed hundreds more houses to be built no amenities apart from swings SNP Council.I agree with the wrong housing as for being frightened The Blair experience where we became the 52nd state for a while and the way LAbour just tax .Gordon Brown who didnt give a monkeys as PM about the radioactivity at Aberdour IS STLL BLEATING AT ANY OPPORTUNITY ABOUT GOVERMENT RESPONSIBILITY but convientley forgetting as PRIME MINISTER HE DID NOTHING,was qwuick enough to raid pension funds..

[cat1]

I don't care who you voted for, Angela Rayner being a deputy prime minister is a terrifying thought. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn09xn9 ... 4032e#post

Also, the return of ed!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn09xn9 ... 36eef#post

Why is it terrifying? Give me three reasons.

1. Causing a bust up in her own party about a week before the election.
2. She was a huge supporter of corbyns manafestio (if you can't recall it look it up)
3. Failure to show her tax arrangements to relevant parties (I wonder why...)

Guess the conservatives are also guilty of the last one....
Or every MP for that matter

[Condor68]

Read your earlier post Baz and Barage is beyond belief.He appeared (pre referendum) allegedly promising free borders etc .once deed was done and referendum over he seemed to vanish.according to my sussex based son his party were giving the impression vote to leave and we will get immigration stopped sort of thing.Now he is back and claiming success in the future.How much cash does he have or who is backing him.

[slogen51]

Great stats Slogen, and continued proof, if ever needed, that the first past the post system is massively flawed. We now have a government in absolute power, with a massive majority, despite the fact that nearly two thirds of the people who voted, didn’t want them as our government? . How can we have the cheek to pat ourselves on the back and say we are a democracy? How can it be fair the pathetic Lib Dem’s can have 71 seats and reform only 4, despite the latter winning more votes? The sooner we get a form of PR, the better. I actually think a system similar to the French system, where perhaps if the votes for all the other candidates exceeds the winner in each constituency, you vote a second time, but with just the top 2 candidates left. That way Lib Dem’s/greens could switch to Labour, and on this occasion, Conservatives switch to Refowm, and ultimately, on each occasion, the winner gets more than 50% of the vote?

I must admit democratically the all or nothing system does seem very flawed.

In the past the Lib Dems have talked about the Single Transferrable Vote but they have probably gone off that idea as they have been relegated to 4th place in the popular vote

[Gary]

We had an alternative vote referendum back in 2011 and it got comprehensively defeated. I’m guessing it would be a closer run thing if they attempted again. Was part of the Lib Dem coalition terms

I voted for it back in 2011 and would again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Unit ... referendum

I don’t think the French system would work. Turn out for the 2nd vote would be abysmal. It’s reported last night turn out was below 60% lots of the early results was closer to 50% turn out. You’d then make people go again a short time later it would be laughable

I wouldn’t want to go down the Aussie route and make it mandatory either

[XWP29]

Politicians only care about power.
Play book.
1. Manifesto (but don’t deliver it)
2. More recent - just offer basic’s - no detail. We have no intention too, but later things have changed etc.

It doesn’t matter really to them it’s all about gaining power, they all fly around for 6 weeks every 4-5 years and then not seen till the next general election.

Gordon Browns hot mike “Bigoted woman” showed the contempt and reality of the contempt. Boris’s freezer moment another.

Politicians should be legally held too:

1. Very High standards
2. Not get away with lying (establish an institute of oversight of truth)
3. Be legally liable for any damage due to non declared policy not in the manifesto and for failure to deliver. (Truss comes to mind).
4. Open book government finances published so opposition parties can’t claim lack of detail to form policy.

Low turnout really needs to be addressed with an overhaul of public office standards. They’ll even bet on that!



OK my Dad was a Toolmaker (in reality - company owner) let’s see what you’ve got.

[Condor68]

We had an alternative vote referendum back in 2011 and it got comprehensively defeated. I’m guessing it would be a closer run thing if they attempted again. Was part of the Lib Dem coalition terms

I voted for it back in 2011 and would again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Unit ... referendum

I don’t think the French system would work. Turn out for the 2nd vote would be abysmal. It’s reported last night turn out was below 60% lots of the early results was closer to 50% turn out. You’d then make people go again a short time later it would be laughable

I wouldn’t want to go down the Aussie route and make it mandatory either

I voted the same Gary and as you I would do it again but as I have said a few times on this forum Farage wound people up to think Vote go stop immigration or so I have been led to believe by friends near Hastings .Never going to happen but I dont live there so dont know what it like.The annoying bit for me was apperently everyone except me wanted a referendum and CAMERON GAVE THEM ONE .Day one the complaints started very few those who voted out had any idea clue of the consequences the short sighted view was immigration.Basically the people said we want a vote .The Torys gave them one and they have cried their little eyes out since because it wasnt what they wanted but now they scream it was the Torys.Dont wish for what you dont know is there.As for the vote numbers loads of kids up here havent a clue wahts it about.

[Condor68]

Can an SNP supporter anywhere explain to me how members of a devolved parliament.ie a Scottish council , not Heads of State which means real government admitted to junkets all over the world at expense of every service they are cutting in the UK and Scotland.This is the UK we have a Government system .Why do Scottish politician go to USA for homecoming celebrations when we are already here and do they go alone or take aides who pays for them?Why does a Scottish council need embassies overseas.Must admit I thought it was April first when I heard that one.

[RubyRoo]

The last 14 years have been tumultuous, but have especially gone so far downhill over the last 5 years that elements of what has gone on has been open corruption and a complete degradation of standards across political life.

Irrespective of your feelings about today's Labour Party, the previous rabble had to go and an election should have been called much sooner. They shouldn't have pandered to the right wing elements of the party which is how we were lumbered with Brexit, labelled quite rightly by Shinzo Abe as the greatest act of self harm a nation has ever conducted in peace time. Starting with this, exacerbated by covid and then the subsequent Russian war, our finances and services are in a horrific mess. Lunatics like Truss should have been nowhere near political power, nor should the convicted Johnson. Honours granted in the Lords to extremely dubious individuals, contracts handed out during Covid to friends and family. HS2 cancellation and watered down to such an extent that the rump that did survive is not any kind of proper HS network at all. Most importantly and pertinently to this forum, defence has been gutted. Previous administrations have not always been defence friendly, but the Conservatives have gutted it to such an extent that leading US figures have said Britain is a second rate military power.

The current Labour Party is not the Labour of the 1960s. They are not the party of Tony Blair. They are not even the party of Corbyn any more. Sir Keir Starmer has a huge job on his hands and I haven't always been happy with the way he has conducted himself across the campaign, but based upon his appointments today, sensible adult have actually returned to the political arena.

Some of you need to give your heads a wobble.

[adderman]

Hi All.

RubyRoo quotes
Most importantly and pertinently to this forum, defence has been gutted. Previous administrations have not always been defence friendly, but the Conservatives have gutted it to such an extent that leading US figures have said Britain is a second rate military power.
unquote.

We may be but they're in no position to criticise. Look at how far in debt the USA is, yet they spend well beyond their means with this gadget and that deployment. How much did that recent round the world KC46 mission cost? They'll write it off as 'operational expenditure or training exercises'.

The Labour party under a Mr T Blair allowed the underfunded UK Military(Gordon wouldn't allow the war-stock's to be used at first) to take part in GW2 even though the Army didn't have enough ammo, snatch Land-Rovers still in use etc. How many troops did we lose from IED's due to this sort of thing?

Politicians on ALL sides have slashed the Defence Budget for decades but are happy to wave the Flag when it makes them look good on the international stage.

[turbosix]

I am very grateful to Nigel Farage for returning to front line politics and thereby splitting the right wing vote which the Tories had hither to taken for granted. In doing so he has finally brought to an end 14 years of the most toxic and corrupt government certainly in my lifetime.

How good (or bad) Labour end up being remains to be seen, but the past 14 years have set the bar so low that it would take very little to be considered an improvement.

I notice regarding early rumours of Sunak’s replacement as leader of the Tories, every suggestion so far is someone who was associated with the grim failures of the recent past. If the Tories ever wish to become an electable party again they need to choose a leader who is not tainted by failure.

[slogen51]

I see labour are saying private enterprise investment is required to 'quick' start the economy ( which according to the ONS was already starting to grow relative to other G7 countries).

Labour saying private sector investment is at the heart of growth is right in my wheel house - quite conservative! Happy with that.

[STN RAMP RAT]

As the election was a couple of days ago now and this thread has turned into a more general "right v left" political thread I think we can say its run its course so I have locked it rather than let it become a moderators nightmare .

[slogen51]

What! ?

Why! ?

I fell in to the 'trap' where mods can add to a thread not realizing it is locked !