Jeremy “Seven Flats” Hunt is now our local MP following a bit of gerrymandering (sorry, I meant “constituency boundary reorganisation”) and it’s noticeable how much effort he is now putting into local problems since no longer being Clodhopper of the Exchequer.
Of course the fact that the Lib Dems came within a whisker of taking his seat off him at the last election may have had something to do with it. They only failed because the candidate the Lib Dems chose (former Leader of the local council) is an arse, according to people I know who have met him.
So, if AR was a barsteward, then if she had dodged stamp duty (which she didn’t ) then that would be OK .
Not something I could subscribe to.
As for all the brouhaha around AR and whether she dodged SD and all the calls for investigations, what is being said are provable lies, and the people saying these things, press and politicians must know they are lying. So, in a choice between provable liars and someone who has done nothing wrong, you seem to have an issue with the innocent party, but not the liars.
Again, not something I could subscribe to.
But if you get both Reform and the Tories peddling the same Trumpian anti-green energy line, a lot of voters are going to think there’s something in what they say, whereas previously there was mostly a consensus among mainstream UK politicians that climate change is real and needs tackling, even if they differed on the pace of change and how to go about it.
You can imagine the appeal to some voters of a party that says “no need to ditch your smelly old diesel car and buy an expensive electric one, and we’ll abolish congestion charging as well.”
I suppose we should hope that the momentum is such that such retrograde ideas won’t take hold.
On a related note quite a few YouTube pundits have been touting a new “plug and play” solar power system by Ecoflow which you can just plug into a wall socket in your house or flat - no need for permanent installation. Apparently it’s selling like hot cakes in Germany, but isn’t yet approved in the UK. I might do a separate thread about it as it’s interesting.
I expect the UK to reach net zero because using gas or electric is going to get so bloody expensive as rates go up, sorry caps go up despite the wholesale prices being stable that we won’t be turning on appliances. Worth getting solar and batteries to avoid this debacle.
I see what you mean, but I think the best way to fight reform is to do the right thing, not follow their lead and move right. I really believe Starmer and Badenoch focus on their “opposition”. They don’t sit down and say “OK, now what is right for the Country, however unpopular that may be until it starts to show results”. Read getting as close to the EU as possible as quickly as possible. They’ve already wasted a year faffing about.
So, Reform (with 4 MPs and led by an blithering idiot) is leading the narrative and Labour and the Tories spend all their time rearranging their deckchairs following suit and the Counry can go to hell in a hand basket. They are all self serving fluckers.
I want to see a plan, a “to be” vision of what success looks like, a detailed plan to get there with milestones and politicians courageous enough to steadfastly implement it. Not these vacillating bullshitters grasping at the straw du jour that I hear on Today and the W@1 and PM. We need leaders, Starmer’s not a leader, Badenoch isn’t a leader. Ironically Farage is a leader, just in the wrong direction.
See, that’s what I think Starmer is doing for the most part and he’s being slated for it. Partly because he’s getting some things quite wrong but I’d suggest mostly because he’s not really trumpeting what he’s actually doing. Or, maybe he is but just not getting the coverage because the media is in thrall to Farage.
I don’t agree that Farage is a leader, in any shape or form, even taking into account my obvious bias against him. He has no charisma. To be a great leader you have to be able to appeal to everyone, and be able to take them with you, regardless of their political persuasion. Farage doesn’t even appeal to everyone in his own party, he’s arrogant, obstinate , uncompromising and not too bright and these taken together do not make a leader.
There is a risk (in my view not insubstantial) that we underestimate his appeal the same way that the US underestimated Trump and there’s a couple of reasons I think that.
The UK’s election system can provide a pretty good working majority on a relatively small share of the vote i.e. look at the current government’s vote share compared to the size of the majority.
Perhaps it’s not so much Farage we need to worry about but the money behind him. I suspect that, like Trump, there is significant money behind Farage, with brain power to match and a really quite sinister agenda e.g. the likes of Paul Marshall. Farage may well just be the telegenic (and he is in terms of getting headlines) useful idiot that gets them the airtime.
It cannot be denied that he is very, very good at the politics of grievance, while offering simplistic solutions and, like any of his ilk, once one of his grievances is addressed, he simply makes up a new one to keep himself relevant.
Until fairly recently, I would have been adamant that he had no chance of power. Now I’m much less confident.
I think there is a huge danger that Farage will enter No 10. After that he will either dismantle democracy to keep himself there or prove so incompetent that there will quickly be a crisis, though to be honest I do not wish to return to the instability that plagued the last Tory administration.
I actually think the incompetence scenario fractionally more likely.
I also think the most likely scenario for the next election (again fractionally) is that the Tories won’t fade completely and Farage will just get half of a spilt RW vote - that might be enough to keep Labour in power.
My take is hardly any party has stuck to their election manifesto, something that really urks me in politics. Farage would no doubt break everything he says and his bank rollers will turn the UK to a very dark place.
That only applies to the ruling party - or do you mean that no party, once elected to power has stuck to its manifesto?
In the case of Labour - I would think that can only be judged at the end of its five year term, many of the “promises” in the manifesto are (as always) a bit woolly and - to be fair - a little over a year is hardly enough time to start to reverse the damage the Tories did. Unfortunately Starmer put handcuffs on himself with his commitment to “make Brexit work” because it limits the ways in which he could improve trading and general relations with the EU (eg not rejoining Erasmus). Plus the obvious gaffs re: inheritance tax for farmers, or the winter fuel allowance.
More generally manifesto commitments are always a bit tricky anyway - things chage over the lifetime of a government. What seemed important pre-election might genuinely turn out to be less of a big deal than people thought - so I don’t think 100% alignment with pre-election promises is actually possible.
They only failed because the candidate the Lib Dems chose (former Leader of the local council) is an arse, according to people I know who have met him.
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