General Election 2024

[UndercoverElephant]

His seat isn't safe. He could yet be the first sitting PM to lose their own seat at a general election. He has got a very long 5 and half weeks ahead of him. Just think how excruciating the second half of May's campaign was in 2017, after her "nothing has changed" moment. Meanwhile all Labour have to do is not make any silly mistakes and come up with a cracker of a manifesto -- something that really gets people interested, because it actually puts some flesh on the bones of "CHANGE". Not easy, but they've had nothing much else to do for the last couple of years but prepare for this. I understand why Chris and others are expecting the tories to recover some ground during the campaign and for Labour's inevitable majority to fall short of 1997 territory, but I still think it is possible that the result of this election could be bad enough to deal them a death blow. He's a crap campaigner and they have no rabbits waiting to be pullled out of hats, and most of the tory press are already cosying up to Labour. Only the Express still appears to have their heart in it. Or.....

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/perso ... s-politics

I've been spending time in London lately where my well-heeled liberal pals can't wait for Labour leader Keir Starmer to become PM. At which point, they'll turn on him. My leftie friends are boiling with rage at the Conservative Party, which they see as greedy, self-serving, incompetent, cruel and corrupt. You don't have to be a London liberal to think that, of course. It's pretty much the UK’s default position after 14 years of underwhelming Tory rule....

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

[clv101]

Assuming Sunak wins his seat but the party suffers a catastrophic loss, no way he sticks around. He'll resign as leader the following morning and as an MP shortly after. Like Cameron after Brexit vote.

[UndercoverElephant]

Assuming Sunak wins his seat but the party suffers a catastrophic loss, no way he sticks around. He'll resign as leader the following morning and as an MP shortly after. Like Cameron after Brexit vote.

Absolutely. Everything about him suggests a man who knows his political career is over. He's just going through the motions now, and I think he's going to struggle to hide that fact.

The scale of their difficulties was made clear a couple of days ago when Victoria Derbyshire was interviewing Tory chairman Richard Holden on Newsnight. Sunak had admitted no flights would leave for Rwanda before the election, and Derbyshire's questioning was quite genuinely based on the assumption that the policy had therefore already failed, since Labour has committed to scrap the scheme and everybody knows they are going to win. So Holden had to pretend to look confused -- "what do you mean it has failed? The legislation has passed. Those flights will start soon enough." Derbyshire looked then genuinely confused, as if she couldn't understand what he was trying to say.

How can you fight an election campaign as an incumbent who everybody is certain is going to lose? There is no viable strategy that isn't really bad.

[clv101]

Yeah, this is why they shouldn't be fighting to win, they just sound daft doing so. They should be bigging up 'horrors' of the 'inevitable' Labour landslide, and pushing the need for a sizeable, effective, Tory-led, opposition.

Crystallising the expectation of a Labour landslide will encourage potential Labour voters to vote Green, or boycott over Gaza etc, and also provides motivation to potential Tory voters to actually vote, not just give up.

[Potemkin Villager]

Expect much will happen in the next six weeks of which at least a few unanticipated mega feckups and freakouts will be very significant.
This election is shaping up to be even more surreal than normal. Political careers seems to attract mostly self obsessed, deluded masochists largely lacking in any detectable degree of self awareness or empathy.Their lives seem largely just one big act. It is only a shame there is not really a UK writer with the talents of someone like Hunter Thompson to do a long narrative take on the current Fear and Loathing in Westminster. As usual my better half will be glued to the TV coverage so I won't miss much!

[UndercoverElephant]

As usual my better half will be glued to the TV coverage so I won't miss much!

BBC has a continual (presumably not in the middle of the night?) election channel available online: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/l ... -2024-live

Pundits drinking coffee chatting about everything as it happens. [some of them aren't pundits]

[BritDownUnder]

Collapse now and avoid the rush!

I like the theory about Reform not being ready.

One thing to remember though is will Labour be able to fix or change anything. I suspect not.

There are plenty of things they will be able to fix and change, because the tories were so incompetent and ideologically constrained. The problem is that in the context of the bigger picture it is mostly low-hanging fruit that won't change the overall trajectory of where the UK or the rest of the western world is heading.

List a few.

[UndercoverElephant]

Collapse now and avoid the rush!

I like the theory about Reform not being ready.

One thing to remember though is will Labour be able to fix or change anything. I suspect not.

There are plenty of things they will be able to fix and change, because the tories were so incompetent and ideologically constrained. The problem is that in the context of the bigger picture it is mostly low-hanging fruit that won't change the overall trajectory of where the UK or the rest of the western world is heading.

List a few.

Removing VAT exemption from private schools.
Renationalising the water industry and the railways.
Legalising and taxing cannabis.

[BritDownUnder]

Private schools describe themselves as charities but I would imagine it is a bit of a sell when you charge the kids for their education. Maybe a few offer scholarships etc to get round it. I accept your point on this one and would actually be a positive in terms of tax take.

Railways and water companies. Probably a good idea to get extra investment. Let's hope you are willing to pay me a lot of money for my shares in Severn Trent and one other water company I can't remember the name of. Then pay more money so that Southern Water can get the water infrastructure upgraded. Most of the income generated by this company and should have spent on infrastructure has already been paid as dividends and long left the UK's shores. Let's not forget the government is highly in debt and this will probably not generate tax income for a few years until Labour get booted out of office again. Railways are a national disaster and have been for a long time.

We have had this drug argument before but my main points are that currently drugs are an illegal industry that pays no tax and I think will be difficult to get them to actually pay tax. All illegal drugs, not just cannabis, are estimated to cost the country about 19 billion pounds a year compared with alcohol costing about 27 billion according to the BBC report I saw. Most of the money that goes into drug either goes overseas representing a loss to the country, or goes into the coffers of organised crime however informal. I don't see the benefits of cannabis having managed to do without it for over 50 years and putting the money instead into my retirement fund. I have also managed without booze for nearly 30 years too. There are also mental health and education underperformance concerns for users. I will credit you will probably get some tax income from this but the longer term costs might be a negative like tobacco if there is an increase in usage. I think this a pretty small thing compared with the major problems facing the country.

I would say the main problem facing the UK is the fact that every year wealth leaves the country either as trade deficit or current account deficit. Those three measures you say that Labour propose will probably not stop that except perhaps renationalising Southern Water.

I would propose the government invests in measure that stop imports of fossil fuels by
1) Beginning the construction of more nuclear plants
2) Building tidal power plants and pumped storage hydro
3) Paying for a battery industry located in and owned by the UK

[UndercoverElephant]

This election campaign feels to me more like 2001 than 1997. For anybody who doesn't remember, in response to Blair's huge popularity the tories had chosen William Hague in an attempt to present something fresh, new and young after the staid conservativism of John Major. The result was a man who already seemed old at the age of 17 wandering around with a reversed baseball cap on desperately trying to compete with Blair's "cool brittania". Meanwhile he was trying to lead a party which was still hopelessly divided over Europe and drifting further towards the right. Nobody was fooled. He just looked like an idiot. The fact that Sunak is the incumbent PM does not make him look any less ridiculous trying to present himself as a man of the people. He very obviously has no idea what life is like for ordinary people, and inconsistently dropping his t's at the end of words fools nobody either. He just sounds like an idiot.

Hague's strategy was never going to work. He never got any traction at all, the polls didn't move and the result of the election was almost identical to 1997.

[UndercoverElephant]

Telegraph: Leaked email blames Tory MPs for poor start to election campaign

https://archive.is/0sKOt

Conservative ministers and MPs have failed to “get behind” campaigning and have refused to knock on doors, a leaked memo from Tory headquarters sent days into the general election campaign has revealed.
Conservative staff accused MPs of focusing too much on ministerial business in a document accidentally emailed to party MPs by a senior campaigning figure at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ).
The message had two attachments. One was a constituency breakdown with what appeared to be sanitised comments. The other had the unvarnished thoughts of Conservative staff. The email was later recalled.
The “key theme” identified in the document was that candidates had failed to “get behind” the campaign, with some on holiday or refusing to knock on doors.
In one case the memo disclosed personal health information about a candidate’s spouse.
One MP accused CCHQ of “rank incompetence” in sending out the comments. Another said: “Great way to start a campaign, piss everyone in marginal seats off in the first week.”

[Mark]

Transition Wilmslow are hosting 'environmental hustings' featuring candidates for the Tatton Constituency:

*** Ever wondered what a decent local political debate about the environment looks like? ***

Dear THE MEDIA,

I'm not learning anything from you covering a man in the street saying: 'politicians are all the same?
I'm not learning anything if you don't follow-up a candidates response with 'How will you do that, in detail please?'
I'm not learning anything from you covering a woman saying 'well, I don't know what they'll do differently.'

The BEST way to EDUCATE YOURSELF is to GET LOCAL
Local candidates, local issues.

*** HUSTINGS *** Saturday 8th June, 1.30pm Wilmslow
NO, politicians are not 'all the same'
YES, your vote matters
YES, this will affect you and your family's daily lives 🫵

LET'S GO Ryan Jude (Labour) Nigel Hennerley (Green) Simon Moorehead (Reform) Esther McVey (Conservative) Jonathan Smith (Lib Dems)
Hosted by Professor David Hulme of The University of Manchester

Anything similar happening elsewhere ?

[Mark]

Tatton result in 2019:

Esther McVey Conservative 28,277 57.7%
James Weinberg Labour 10,890 22.2%
Jonathan Smith Liberal Democrat 7,712 15.7%
Nigel Hennerley Green Party 2,088 4.3%

Majority - 17,387
Electorate - 69,018
Turnout - 70.9%

[Ralphw2]

Another Tory MP resigned and/or sacked after calling for the public to vote Reform

[UndercoverElephant]

Another Tory MP resigned and/or sacked after calling for the public to vote Reform

And yet somehow this barely qualifies as newsworthy.