Conservative party/opposition watch

[UndercoverElephant]

His speech was pathetic compared to anything Osborne or Brown had delivered at conference.

He has got nothing to say that any of the audience wanted to hear.

[Potemkin Villager]

The whole thing is just a bit embarrassing.

A fine piece of understatement but I would use a rather stronger adjective!

As usual my better half won't miss a bit of it and I have to admit to a strange morbid fascination. I hope they do a Gogglebox on it. Maybe when the authors of satirical crime series "Midsomer Murders" finally exhaust ideas they might consider some sort of "Party Conference Murders".

[clv101]

Nigel Farage to become a Conservative candidate (for a safe, if such a thing exists, seat) next year? In exchange for him standing down Reform. Standing down Reform might save a few Tory seats and the party might think Farage would be an asset in opposition?

Senior members might fear he'd become party leader though.

[UndercoverElephant]

It's official. HS2 Manchester line to be scrapped. Why has Sunak spent the last two weeks refusing to confirm this? Just looks daft.

[oobers]

It was reported some years ago that many valuable wildlife sites and ancient woodlands would be lost to HS2. Do we know if any of these have already been trashed along the route that has now been axed? Or has work only begun on the Birmingham London stretch?

[Forever_Winter]

It's official. HS2 Manchester line to be scrapped. Why has Sunak spent the last two weeks refusing to confirm this? Just looks daft.

Yes. The only surprise was to still take it to Euston, when the rumours were saying that it would terminate at Old Oak Common.

[clv101]

Assuming there's going to be an election next year, which the Tories are likely to lose, how much of what Sunak said today will actually happen? What's to stop the new government reinstating the high speed line to Manchester for example? Or rowing back on maths to 18?

All these new infrastructure projects announced in his speech, exactly none will be delivered during his remaining months in office - he could promise *anything* safe in the knowledge that funding and building it will be Labour's problem.

[Potemkin Villager]

A four day festival of bullsh*t, dogwhistles and scaremongering the likes of which I’ve never seen.” Jonathan Pie

Couldn't put it better.

[UndercoverElephant]

What's to stop the new government reinstating the high speed line to Manchester for example?

There's no money left...

[clv101]

After watching a dozen Tory speeches this week, today I re-watched Thatcher's 1989 Climate Change Speech at UN General Assembly. It's an incredible speech - hard to believe it's 34 years old now, with only a few exceptions, every sentence hit the mark. Nothing I heard from this conference was remotely comparable.

Recommend anyone with an interest in politics and environment to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAzoDtwCBg

[Ralphw2]

20% swing snp to labour in latest by election. Tories down 11% and lost their deposit.

Starmer very happy.

Greens still polling at about 5%, but in danger of losing their one and only seat.

[UndercoverElephant]

20% swing snp to labour in latest by election. Tories down 11% and lost their deposit.

Starmer very happy.

Greens still polling at about 5%, but in danger of losing their one and only seat.

Labour will win the most Scottish seats at the general election -- no question about that now. The SNP vote is likely to collapse everywhere. What is the point in voting for them now?

[Mark]

It was reported some years ago that many valuable wildlife sites and ancient woodlands would be lost to HS2. Do we know if any of these have already been trashed along the route that has now been axed? Or has work only begun on the Birmingham London stretch?

Negative environmental impact of HS2 could worsen with scaling back:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... aling-back

[Potemkin Villager]

Greens still polling at about 5%, but in danger of losing their one and only seat.

Caught a bit of their conference today. Everything they are proposing seems eminently sensible
including household insulation, renewables etc. You know little of it that threatens vested interests will ever be allowed to happen
which is why tories and labour are uturning.

I wonder how much longer they will have the energy to keep banging their heads on the wall?

[Ralphw2]

snp mp defects to the Tories. The SNP must be in a really bad way to see the Tories as ore electable.