UK Conservative Party Leadership Election

[pinnit2014]

Starmer took the knee to that criminal in the US and for that reason alone he will never get my vote.

Trump?

 

[pinnit2014]

Apparently there were 342 sea swimmers doing their annual Boxing Day cold dip off the Kent coast and 873 came back.

point proven

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Latest rounds of polling are out, and they're..... not good news for READY4RISHI.

You can see the whole lot here, but the figure that jumped out the most at me was party support in the under 50 age bracket, which looks like this.

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Lab 60%
Con 10%
Green 10%
LD 9%
Reform 5%
SNP 3%

If you look at the overall figures it's still diabolical for the Tories, coming in at

Lab 47%
Con 20% (!)
Reform 12%
LD 8%

Usual caveats apply around 'it's only polling', but the historical switch to the Tories as people get older just happening isn't any longer (as per the normalised social contracts around housing, wealth, pensions etc are shattered). Brexit remains a generational schism, the Rwanda policy is toxic with all but right-wing old people (who also think it's a bust but like the idea), and a large majority of people think the UK is in a worse state now than when the Tories came to power. (Not exactly a controversial opinion at this point, I'd have thought.)

The unfortunate news is that Labour don't exactly have much in the way of a radical agenda, so unless they really shift into gear once in power (assuming that actually happens, which is never a given when it comes to general elections), they're not going to be a transformative force of change, although I do still think they'll make things better overall.

Anyway, general election in the next twelve months, it'll be an interesting one.

 

[slot_zombie]

The Tories (former lifelong supporter here) deserve nothing less after the shitshow of the last 5 years.

Unfortunately I will never bring myself to vote for a donkey wearing a red rosette, that really would be cutting the nose off to spite the face.

Reform it is, then. Although Labour will undoubtedly win.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

The Tories (former lifelong supporter here) deserve nothing less after the shitshow of the last 5 years.

Unfortunately I will never bring myself to vote for a donkey wearing a red rosette, that really would be cutting the nose off to spite the face.

Reform it is, then. Although Labour will undoubtedly win.

Just the last five years? What were the Tory highlights of 2010-2019?

Cameron and Osborne presided over a truly crushing period of austerity, which has caused damage to the fabric of the UK, and its population, that will take many years, if not decades, to reverse (and some of it may be unfixable). It also birthed the rolling calamity of Brexit, which has blown a permanent hole in the UK's finances to the tune of tens of billions of pounds, every year, in perpetuity, in lost economic activity.

The last five years have been, for sure, a 'shitshow', but nothing that hadn't been foreshadowed by the previous years of Tory maladministration IMO.

 

[dunover]

Just the last five years? What were the Tory highlights of 2010-2019?

Cameron and Osborne presided over a truly crushing period of austerity, which has caused damage to the fabric of the UK, and its population, that will take many years, if not decades, to reverse (and some of it may be unfixable). It also birthed the rolling calamity of Brexit, which has blown a permanent hole in the UK's finances to the tune of tens of billions of pounds, every year, in perpetuity, in lost economic activity.

The last five years have been, for sure, a 'shitshow', but nothing that hadn't been foreshadowed by the previous years of Tory maladministration IMO.

Don't worry, the equally inept pals of yours will get a crushing victory this year and will quickly prove to be equally incompetent, bent and hopeless.

The Tories had a swingeing majority via the northern seats they won, mainly due to UKIP/Brexit party in 2019 - those Labour voters who couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory voted that way thus taking enough votes from Labour to allow the Tories to win by default. Not applicable this time around, they will all go back to Labour.

So the situation will reverse itself. I cannot vote Tory this time - the spineless, blathering, dishonest and disingenous cretins in power now are the biggest shitshow since Callaghan's 1974-79 administration. So I will vote Reform UK, a gesture only as they will likely get millions of votes as with the LDs but few or no seats. But this will make certain of the biggest ever swing (in terms of seats) in UK electoral history. Labour will make colossal gains, I can even see them leaving the Tories with less than 100 seats.

As well as this massive fillip for Labour, you've got a nasty, anti-white, venomous-looking muslim Hamas supporter in charge of the SNP in Scotland (WTF??) who was unelected like Rishi Sunk and leads an equally discredited and hopeless party. Labour have never had it so good, they could stand a six-foot plastic turd for election in 620-odd UK mainland seats and still win 400+ of them easily.

Beware of what you wish for mate, it's soon gonna happen.....

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Don't worry, the equally inept pals of yours will get a crushing victory this year and will quickly prove to be equally incompetent, bent and hopeless.

The Tories had a swingeing majority via the northern seats they won, mainly due to UKIP/Brexit party in 2019 - those Labour voters who couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory voted that way thus taking enough votes from Labour to allow the Tories to win by default. Not applicable this time around, they will all go back to Labour.

So the situation will reverse itself. I cannot vote Tory this time - the spineless, blathering, dishonest and disingenous cretins in power now are the biggest shitshow since Callaghan's 1974-79 administration. So I will vote Reform UK, a gesture only as they will likely get millions of votes as with the LDs but few or no seats. But this will make certain of the biggest ever swing (in terms of seats) in UK electoral history. Labour will make colossal gains, I can even see them leaving the Tories with less than 100 seats.

As well as this massive fillip for Labour, you've got a nasty, anti-white, venomous-looking muslim Hamas supporter in charge of the SNP in Scotland (WTF??) who was unelected like Rishi Sunk and leads an equally discredited and hopeless party. Labour have never had it so good, they could stand a six-foot plastic turd for election in 620-odd UK mainland seats and still win 400+ of them easily.

Beware of what you wish for mate, it's soon gonna happen.....

As you note yourself, the Tories had something of a clear run at it in 2019, with many people simply unable to bring themselves to vote for Corbyn, and the dynamics around those Red Wall seats wanting to 'Get Brexit Done' making Johnson's pantomime act a one time only credible electoral proposition.

The thing with Labour is that they do make things better when they're in power, and in ways that most people really notice, such as the NHS. Many political arguments and debates are somewhat esoteric and seem very far removed from a lot of what goes on in the day-to-day lives of people in the UK, but everyone notices when it's taking them, or their family and friends, weeks to get an appointment with a doctor, when by the end of Labour's last stint in government, the target (which was almost universally met), was 48 hours. (NHS hospital waiting lists are also now catastrophically longer than they were in 2010, and this was happening long before Covid, so that's not a Get Out Of Jail Free card.)

Moreover, the Tories have fundamentally fucked themselves with what has traditionally been their Ace up the sleeve, being the party of economic competence. And I don't just mean Truss and Kwarteng (who have done a huge amount of damage to the Tory's economic brand). The national debt, for example, which was £770bn when the Tories came to power, is now £2760bn, which if you work it out is a frankly mind-boggling £380m per day. Yes, that's three hundred and eighty million pounds, PER DAY, added onto the UK's national debt in 14 years of Tory rule. (And seriously folks, what have we got to show for it?)

The young are already massively anti-Tory, and as people pass into middle age they're not switching to the right - (as discussed previously in this thread, as the old economic model that saw people get better off, own houses, get a decent pension etc as they got older has been smashed) - we all know for a fact that the Brexit referendum would go for Remain if it were held now, and that's only going in one direction (further towards Remain) as the years roll by and demographics does its thing. (My dad, rest his soul, voted Tory in 2019 and for Leave in 2016, neither of his children, or their children, would ever do so.)

The Tories are almost certainly getting hoofed out at the next election, and I'm wondering what their route back in will look like. Starmer's Labour aren't going to be revolutionary, but they do have some pretty solid policies that are decently popular with a fairly broad slice of the electorate. They're also laudably sane and have an air of workmanlike boring competence about them, which after the rolling Tory shitshow since the Brexit referendum in 2016, is quite electorally appealing.

The latest act of self-destruction that the Tories are performing over Rwanda is emblematic of how much they're lost the plot, that policy is pure poison to just about everyone of a centre-left disposition, but also to huge chunks of more centrist and reasonable folks who lean to the right, there was a telling moment in the latest episode of Question Time, which had a majority Tory audience, and they were asked for a show of hands on who supported the Rwanda policy - not a single hand went up.

Still, as they say, as week is a long time in politics, let alone a year, and if there's one thing the Tory party is good at, it's reinventing itself and winning elections, but from the current position it's hard to see how they don't lose the next election, and with this ongoing lurch to far right populism and general bat-shittery, it's kind of hard to see how they win again, either.

 

[goatwack]

Yeah....... no. Lost me eleven words into the second paragraph. But God knows, I tried!

 

[mack341]

but they do have some pretty solid policies that are decently popular with a fairly broad slice of the electorate.

Can you give us a few Chop, because Starmer's labour seems to me to have a distinct 'we don't mention policy round these parts' feel to it.

You mention the enormous national debt, have labour got a cunning, blackadder style plan to reduce that?

They may have a burst of energy and focus the tories cannot muster now, such has the car crash nature of their tenure been, which could see things in general [nhs] run better rather than the current headless chicken feel.

 

[goatwack]

I'd imagine it'd be something like this:

Blackadder: "What is it now Baldrick. The country's gone to ruin, the Conservatives are more incompetent than Lord Percy Percy in one of his fugue states, whilst Labour are about as competent as you using a privy chamber

Baldrick: Don't worry Mr B, I have a cunning plan

Blackadder: Oh God no.....but it can't be any worse than the blithering simpletons currently in power. Let's hear Labour's vision

Baldrick: Well......we give everyone free things, forever

Blackadder: Never mind, you rancid pus-cleaved cretin

 

[dunover]

Yeah....... no. Lost me eleven words into the second paragraph. But God knows, I tried!

The word is 'better' which yes, I would find hard to correlate positively in a paragraph that mentions Starmer's Labour. I suppose it's difficult to read past that when one's eyes are rolling while head is shaking...

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Can you give us a few Chop, because Starmer's labour seems to me to have a distinct 'we don't mention policy round these parts' feel to it.

You mention the enormous national debt, have labour got a cunning, blackadder style plan to reduce that?

They may have a burst of energy and focus the tories cannot muster now, such has the car crash nature of their tenure been, which could see things in general [nhs] run better rather than the current headless chicken feel.

There's a decent top-level look here, not exactly expansive in some regards but Labour are right to be cautious, if they do win the next election they're still not sure exactly what the Tories will be handing over, but they do know it won't be good after fourteen years of calamitous Tory misrule.

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I'm not here to particularly 'sell' Starmer's Labour, as I've said many times, I'm not a big fan of him or a chunk of his shadow cabinet (Saint Jeremy Of Corbyn was far more impressive), but I do think they're a much better option than the Tories. End of the day it doesn't really matter which way a few folks here at CM vote, or don't vote, by all accounts the country has already spoken, they're just waiting for their chance at the ballot box to make it official.

 

[mack341]

There's a decent top-level look here, not exactly expansive in some regards but Labour are right to be cautious, if they do win the next election they're still not sure exactly what the Tories will be handing over, but they do know it won't be good after fourteen years of calamitous Tory misrule.

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I'm not here to particularly 'sell' Starmer's Labour, as I've said many times, I'm not a big fan of him or a chunk of his shadow cabinet (Saint Jeremy Of Corbyn was far more impressive), but I do think they're a much better option than the Tories. End of the day it doesn't really matter which way a few folks here at CM vote, or don't vote, by all accounts the country has already spoken, they're just waiting for their chance at the ballot box to make it official.

...Eh that's news to me, I thought we had the deciding vote here at CM!

The thing is with the tories now no one believes a word they say, their manifesto will be a complete waste of paper and effort writing it.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Don't worry, the equally inept pals of yours will get a crushing victory this year and will quickly prove to be equally incompetent, bent and hopeless.

The Tories had a swingeing majority via the northern seats they won, mainly due to UKIP/Brexit party in 2019 - those Labour voters who couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory voted that way thus taking enough votes from Labour to allow the Tories to win by default. Not applicable this time around, they will all go back to Labour.

So the situation will reverse itself. I cannot vote Tory this time - the spineless, blathering, dishonest and disingenous cretins in power now are the biggest shitshow since Callaghan's 1974-79 administration. So I will vote Reform UK, a gesture only as they will likely get millions of votes as with the LDs but few or no seats. But this will make certain of the biggest ever swing (in terms of seats) in UK electoral history. Labour will make colossal gains, I can even see them leaving the Tories with less than 100 seats.

As well as this massive fillip for Labour, you've got a nasty, anti-white, venomous-looking muslim Hamas supporter in charge of the SNP in Scotland (WTF??) who was unelected like Rishi Sunk and leads an equally discredited and hopeless party. Labour have never had it so good, they could stand a six-foot plastic turd for election in 620-odd UK mainland seats and still win 400+ of them easily.

Beware of what you wish for mate, it's soon gonna happen.....

At the current direction of travel Reform might have half a chance of getting some MPs, currently polling just 7% behind the Tories, who, on a wider note, have done incredibly well since the UK finally left the EU in 2020.

Brexit eats its children.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Liz Truss, the Prime Ministerial equivalent of an 84% PnG game being run out of a Somalian toilet, somehow keeps managing to pop up and tell everyone what she thinks of things. Now that's she at a safe distance from any actual levers of power, it's moderately amusing to watch some of things that her dismal mind farts out.

Here she is telling us that Britain is full of secret Conservatives who are too scared of 'THE LEFT', at the launch of her new, and hilariously titled, Popular Conservatives group, which in the current political climate must win some sort of award for being the perfect oxymoron.

CONTENT WARNING - May cause a bit of your brain to melt and leak out of your ears.

 

[mack341]

You have to laugh when conservative mps talk as though they've been in opposition for a decade.

But I'll let Liz give her own verdict on Chop's personal attack in relation to her brainfarts

 

[ChopleyIOM]

You have to laugh when conservative mps talk as though they've been in opposition for a decade.

But I'll let Liz give her own verdict on Chop's personal attack in relation to her brainfarts

The thing that gets me is it's almost as if they're expecting the entire population of the UK to just forget that the Tories have been in power for fourteen uninterrupted years now, so when they tell us the things that are shit, who is everyone going to look at and say, 'Well yeah, that's your fault'?

Anyway, latest polling today, this seems fairly consistent now, ever since Truss and her psycho government showed the UK what they'd really like to do, given the chance (no taxes for the rich, lots of taxes and shit services for everyone else), the Conservative Party has been holed below the waterline.

Maybe if they'd followed her up with someone amazing, they'd still be in with half a shout, but since Johnson expunged all the brightest brains from the frontline of the Tories in favour of nodding dog conformist Brexiteers (swallowing of Kool-Aid mandatory), there's no one like that left. Instead we got Sunak, who seems to have the political instincts of an elderly hamster.

Christ, I'm old enough to remember Tories like Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine.

 

[mack341]

I have major, longstanding issues re Labour and their brand of wokery and thought policing, however on the flipside I don't think they'd come out with 'blame it on the peasants' stuff like this. Do other countries with big populations, like germany or landlocked ones that can't pump sewage into the sea, advise their citizens not to flush the loo when it's raining heavily?

The privatise everything going model has major flaws the tories have never accepted, and they've almost become as woke as labour but also still servile to vested interests and fat cats, that's the impression.

 

[slot_zombie]

Christ, I'm old enough to remember Tories like Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine.

View attachment 193395

You cannot come out with that statement and not at least give an honourable mention to Douglas Hurd. Good, serious politician from the era when politics was more than a dumping ground for inept blowhards..

 

[ChopleyIOM]

You cannot come out with that statement and not at least give an honourable mention to Douglas Hurd. Good, serious politician from the era when politics was more than a dumping ground for inept blowhards..

Yes Douglas Hurd, or indeed many of the Thatcher-era Tories, including Thatcher herself, who as you can imagine I'm not a fan of in terms of policy and what she did (IMO) to the UK, but at least she was a principled politician who had sincerely held beliefs which she articulated clearly and was prepared to stand behind.

There's a great story about Thatcher meeting Gorbachev, and the two of them staying up late into the night having an intense yet respectful debate, as she was deeply interested in understanding Russian politics and the Communist philosophy, and wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to speak to the guy at the top of it all.

Can you imagine that kind of intellectual curiosity from anyone on the current Tory Party front benches?

 

[dunover]

Yes Douglas Hurd, or indeed many of the Thatcher-era Tories, including Thatcher herself, who as you can imagine I'm not a fan of in terms of policy and what she did (IMO) to the UK, but at least she was a principled politician who had sincerely held beliefs which she articulated clearly and was prepared to stand behind.

There's a great story about Thatcher meeting Gorbachev, and the two of them staying up late into the night having an intense yet respectful debate, as she was deeply interested in understanding Russian politics and the Communist philosophy, and wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to speak to the guy at the top of it all.

Can you imagine that kind of intellectual curiosity from anyone on the current Tory Party front benches?

Depends which one is in charge of the brain cell on the day.

 

[dunover]

 

[goatwack]

Hot on the heels of whispering Starmer's Speaker subterfuge in view to curry favour with peaceful Gaza-adjacent 'protestors', it seems as though ol' George Galloway decided to go one better and stick it to his former Labour pals by winning the Rochdale by-election with the Workers Party of Britain!

Quite how the cat cosplayer intends to make his case for Gaza in Parliament is unclear, but it does seem to signify the ability to steal off what could be future Labour hotspots, for better or for worse, and how easily it can be achieved....

Miaow?...

 

[Webzcas]

"and I'll be the cat"

Before he did that, his performance against the US Senate Committee was very impressive. But his appearance on CBB undid all that great work LOL

 

[Webzcas]

View attachment 194036

You owe me a new keyboard and some wipes for my screen!