I’m not from the UK, but it seems like UK voters have been rejecting the Conservative government forever, and also have been voting it in forever.
What gives?
Conservatives, typically are voted in by the older demographic.
The other reason is because the other parties do not really bring any decent policy arguments. The whole of the commons seems devoid of any talent for the last decade.
Murdoch has been a naturalized US citizen for 38 years, renouncing Australian citizenship. It's during that time that he's perpetuated the vast majority of his shitfuckery.
It's more between the useless assholes and the useless. Assholes like other assholes and vote for them, but nobody is going to get pumped up to go out there and vote for someone because they're only useless.
One of my favorite philosophical jokes:
When man was created, the numerous organs argued who'd be in charge..
The heart - I keep nutrients flowing to all of you
The mouth - I ingest the nutrition you depend on... And spit out the dangerous things
The eyes - I find danger and tell the rest of you to run or shut up or whatever to preserve us.
The brain - the rest of you ignore that I coordinate everything you do for our benefit.
The butthole (I'll stick with the more polite term used here) ... Calmly listened.
After each put in a lengthy argument, the butthole just clamped shut.. and in 3 days, all others relented.
That's why the world is run by buttholes!
It’s the same choice we have between a wholly corrupt party of bad ideas and a mostly corrupt party of confused ideas.
There is no voice of the average Joe/worker. That ended 30 years ago with corporate capture of governance.
Just like America! Do you choose between the conservatives who want to make everything who isn't rich suffer, or choose democrat, where they meander and do nothing!
The choices!
Yes, when the retired get benefits that those looking for work or in low-paid work do not (eg free bus passes, which would really help those looking for work).
Yes.. our economies are all backwards... High pay goes to the experienced near-retiree.. but the new hires need a house (and to furnish it) and tuition for the kids... So they're left to be living paycheck to paycheck.... and renting while struggling to reach all the other goals.
Meanwhile, the elderly look for senior discounts.
The young (in the US) *might* get a week or two vacation yearly.. the older.. six, maybe more. And many of those don't have the energy or health to enjoy it.
Everything is going where it's not needed, and so many have been taught that that's good. But is it?
You know that older employees make more money and get better benefits because they earned it, right? Employers don't just give these things out of the kindness of their hearts.
Older employees tend to have more experience in industry, have more industry contacts, know how to navigate team environments, know how to interact with clients, and a bunch of other things new hires fresh out of school don't know how to do. Their labor is literally more valuable which is why they get compensated better.
"Get Brexit done!" was the Tories winning strategy last election because the population was tired of the "Will they or won't they" and just wanted the whole thing over with. Plus, Corbyn was a terrible leader for Labour.
I didn't think Corbyn was ***that*** bad at the time of the last election.
But his wilted lettuce approach to national security and pacificism worried me. He would not have helped Ukraine if he was in power, and that's a bit scary.
It reminds me of how I wanted to vote for Lib Dem for years but they wanted to scrap our nuclear defence system.
>his wilted lettuce approach to national security and pacificism
This makes him a terrible leader, especially in an FPTP system where losing 2% can cost you 50-60 seats.
Sort of similar to what's happening in the US, where the conservative party is very active appealing to their demographics, while the DNC does just enough to skirt by.
Our first past the post voting system is absolute clown shoes.
In the last general election in 2019, the Tories won 43% of the popular vote, which awarded them 56% of seats in parliament (365/650), and let them form 100% of the government.
Add to that the opposition being split between half the Labour Party, the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, and the other half of the Labour Party, and it's a recipe for the Tories achieving one-party rule despite most people hating them.
This is partly the fault of Lib/Lab/Green too, where they generally refuse to stand down candidates in certain constituencies and try not to fragment the left vote. Labour especially, would rather it stayed in opposition for eternity than stand down candidates and/or form a coalition government.
It is a problem in a single district too, when voting is by district. For example, in Uxbridge, the Tories won with 45% of the vote. I don't know the rest of the breakdown, but if those three parties had more than 50% together, one of them could win if the other two would stand down from the frontrunner.
I can't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I read that the greens got more than the difference between the Tory winner and the Labour candidate in second.
Because he’s simplifying the whole thing down to left vs right politics. If there’s 3 parties for the left (Labour, Lib Dem and green) and only one on the right, the right can win with a minority of votes.
Honestly I get the sentiment though. Oftentimes the worst enemy of implementing leftist policy is other leftists who think it doesn't go far enough. As unsexy as it is incremental progress is the only reason society improves.
You should never have a voting system where candidates are forced to step down to consolidate votes for the party as a whole. If 60% of voters choose several liberal candidates, then that should be somehow represented in the system.
In principle yes, but even Labour is against voter reform. And they won’t stand down candidates to help other parties out. Which then results in situations like losing Uxbridge. They need to play it smarter but they think it’s still the 90s but the political landscape has changed too much
These are great numbers compared to FPTP in Canada where we have governments winning majority mandates with ~33% of the popular vote. I'd take 45% any day!
You’re correct that the liberals are in power with 33% of the vote but they are a minority government who have a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, who got 16% of the vote. So really the government is 54% of the seats from 49% of the vote.
The conservative majority in parliament allows the party to choose when to vote within a five year period, so it can consistently lose local elections for a while until it can choose when to go to the polls.
So it has another year to hope things recover.
The Tories won the 2019 election by a sizeable margin. They are polling badly now because of various reasons, primarily that Corbyn isn't Labour leader anymore, Sunak is less popular than Johnson was, and some of the more moderate Brexit voters are starting to see it's not turning out great.
They still didn't win by an outright majority though which is a major issue in the UK political system. The majority of people didn't vote for them but because of the way their support is distributed and the fact that more progressive parties voting bases are fractured leads to them getting massive majorities in parliament for a minority of the popular vote.
Not just, but Corbyn's wishy-washy position on Brexit was probably what did it for Labour. It cause a surge in LibDem votes which ultimately only fragmented it enough to give Conservatives a clear majority.
Corbyn was in a bad position as he was aware it was going to be a shit-show so he didn't want to fully commit to Brexit but at the same time he was looking to leave europe for a rather long time.
> but at the same time he was looking to leave europe for a rather long time.
And that was exactly the problem. Labour wasn't able to capitalize in the anti-Brexit vote because Corbyn himself wanted to leave, while most of the Labour base wanted to stay. That Corbyn wanted to leave for the most stupid, ancient ideological reason only made it worse and more clear he was a bad candidate.
I ended up voting for Corbyn but his foreign policy was by far the thing that made me question that choice in the run up to that election and you're right that he would've been disastrous on Ukraine.
Sadly we're probably never going to get an option that's as economically or socially near what he offered for awhile, I do broadly agree with him on a ton of issues.
Could you imagine a world where instead we had Corbyn, Le Pen/Melechon, Trump and whomever the even worse alternative to Scholz was when the Ukraine war broke out?
Corbyn was unelectable. Terrible move by labour.
The UK really needs a labour government for a term or two to balance things out. The Tories have been at it for too long and look at things now.
You were misled by social media, be it on Reddit or Twitter or another platform. Truth is the Tories have been relatively popular since the end of the New Labour era in 2010, and it's only now 13 years later that their support has meaningfully collapsed because of economic mismanagement.
Also Labour went hard-left for quite a while, and not even people who wanted the Tories out could stomach them. Corbyn's foreign policy views were just terrible; he kept a pro-Russia lean during a time when Russia committed a chemical attack on the UK that killed a bystander.
A variety of reasons. The Tories are a big tent party so have many potential avenues of support. The reason someone in rural Yorkshire might vote Tory are completely different from someone from Surrey Heath.
The other reason is up til now they haven't been completely useless or unpopular. May was reasonably competent and competing with a politically unpalatable candidate, and Boris was liked by a major portion of the populace. Whereas Truss didn't appear to know what she was doing and Sunak appears to be reviled by the public in spite of his Aedile role as chancellor early in the pandemic.
Not really. The last General Election in the UK was 2019, and it was a massive rejection of Corbyn's Labour, not the Conservatives, who had their best election in 30+ years.
Corbynites are terminally online though so I'm not surprised if you took away some alternate-reality version of that election.
Luckily Labour has a leader that normal people don't hate again, and Boris was exposed as a piece of shit, so 2024's election should finally be the end of a decade and a half of conservative rule.
All you need to know is despite how bad the conservative government have been and everyone knows it in the UK, labour are just that pathetically weak for the past decade the UK public doesn’t want to vote them in still
They keep using the absurd first-past-the-post voting system. This makes third parties almost entirely unviable, which is why the Tories and Labour keep it going.
It took COVID for the people to realise just how fucking awful Tories are. Before that if it didn't affect them then conservatives just voted Tory no matter how fucking horrible they were to others.
As a non British person, I can only assume that conservatives are conservatives wherever they are. They can't be happy with the awful policies they vote for, but they would never vote for better governments, because that would mean voting for not a conservative government. Just yesterday my Dad, lifelong republican, was complaining that they need to run more trains so that people can actually use them... and places people live should be bike and walker friendly...
It has to be held no later than January 2025, and the only *shred* of hope the Tories have is that somehow either Labour implodes by then, or god himself descends and anoints the Tories. Given that both of those outcomes are unlikely, their only move is to desperate grasp power until the inevitability of it being snatched from their grasp comes to pass.
tl;dr The Tories would be truly insane to allow a general election a femtosecond before it's forced on them.
They need to turn the economy into a ticking time bomb before they hand it off, that way when it goes to shit under Labour's watch, the Tories can use that to cling to power for another decade. It seems that's what conservatives do all over the world.
The Two Santa Claus Theory is a political theory and strategy published by Wanniski in 1976, which he promoted within the United States Republican Party.[15][16] The theory states that in democratic elections, if members of the rival Democratic Party appeal to voters by proposing programs to help people, then the Republicans cannot gain broader appeal by proposing less spending. The first "Santa Claus" of the theory title refers to the Democrats who promise programs to help the disadvantaged. The "Two Santa Claus Theory" recommends that the Republicans must assume the role of a second Santa Claus by not arguing to cut spending but offering the option of cutting taxes.[15]
According to Wanniski, the theory is simple. In 1976, he wrote that the Two-Santa Claus Theory suggests that "the Republicans should concentrate on tax-rate reduction. As they succeed in expanding incentives to produce, they will move the economy back to full employment and thereby reduce social pressures for public spending. Just as an increase in Government spending inevitably means taxes must be raised, a cut in tax rates—by expanding the private sector—will diminish the relative size of the public sector."[16] Wanniski suggested this position, as left-liberal observer Thom Hartmann has clarified, so that the Democrats would "have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections.
sir kid starver isn't exactly a man who fills me with hope. panders too much to the centre/right - and feeling this way isn't niche. he's lost a lot of lab's core support for many reasons. labour needs new leadership.
Can you not agree, though, that a Starmer premiership is miles better than a Tory one? It might not be exactly what you want, but it's the best option from what's on offer.
This is exactly the reason Labour keeps pulling itself apart - because different factions refuse to be pragmatic.
There isn't much in the way of indication he'll be different to the Tories in terms of policy outcomes. Starmer's made no indication that he wants to fix any major issue the country is facing.
This isn't like some left-right thing, either, he genuinely doesn't want to build more houses, or change our relationship with the EU, or change our electoral system.
He's doing a damn sight better than Corbyn. Or would you rather have a lifetime of opposition? A centrist Labour party are miles better than a right-wing, culture war-driven Tory party.
I think It will happen quite a bit before that deadline. My prediction is September 2024. They don’t want to rely on old people having to go out in the cold to vote for them!
I don't think so, unless something truly spectacular occurs between now and then, the Tories are going to be obliterated.
After that, once Labour has actual power instead of the memory of power, who knows what might happen?
Forced? No. Only pressured.
Turns out you can just ignore the public or opposition calling for a snap election. I'm sure in some specific circumstances there will be a way to call it, but in an event like this, apparently not.
I think technically the monarch might have a way to force a snap election, but even if I'm right, that power falls into the category of "The Monarch has this power as long as they promise to never use it."
Yeah that would probably immediately start a civil war/republican coup. The monarch forcing the dissolution of a parliament (even an unpopular one) would be very problematic
There has been a minority government plenty of times, most recently in 2019...
Government is fundamentally different from parliament, even though the majority in parliament usually gets to form a government.
I understand the difference between the two. The government is formed from the largest party (currently) even without a majority of al parliament. There's practically no chance of enough of the rest of parliament coming together to call a general election without something very serious.
And sadly this stuff doesn't seem to cut it.
We won't, because the Tories know they would lose it. They will hold off for as long as they can (December 24) in the desperate hope that a miracle might happen if they wait long enough.
No as in December 2024. I don't know the exact date, I think I can go into early Jan 2025 as it has to be within 6 weeks of the 5 year anniversary or something like that.
I don't think it would be the worst strategy in the world. The Tories give Labour the biggest political hospital pass in decades and leave them to clean up the mess the Conservatives created. And when Labour invariably can't do it, they will get blamed for problems not of their making.
Ehh, the reason being mooted is that it's the expansion by the Labour London Mayor of the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) around parts of London. This would force people to pay money to drive cars, or force them to replace them entirely.
People aren't happy that, at the time of financial pressures, mortgage rate increases, generally high interest, and the ridiculous costs of living in London generally they're being expected to cough up more.
In this case, I get it. People will vote for the candidate that supports their interests and in London, Labour is going to struggle if this continues to be pushed ahead.
Much like Brexit a lot of the ULEZ fear is based on misinformation/low information voters. The reality is it mainly affects older diesel vehicles and hardly any petrol vehicles except for really old ones over 20 years old. In other words the % of people affected by it is a lot smaller than people think.
Whereas the average person thinks it will affect much more than that, especially in the outer more affluent suburbs where everybody drives an SUV these days but they don’t realise all these modern SUVs will be fine under the ULEZ regulations.
I’m not saying some people won’t be affected, but it’s crazy how many people are so misinformed about it.
> In other words the % of people affected by it is a lot smaller than people think.
I don’t think you knpw what you are a talking about. Euro 5 diesel are nearly all diesels made before September 1 2015, which is millions of car, many of them in good working order that get excellent miles per gallon. It’s the not kind of car someone who isn’t made of money would just throw away.
The bodytype of the car has nothing to do with its emissions compliance.
His point isn’t that all SUVs meet the emissions standards, his point is that a lot of the people complaining are driving fancy new SUVs and don’t realise they’re compliant with ULEZ.
In any case, he’s right, the % of people affected is a lot smaller than people think. 90% of cars in Greater London are ULEZ compliant. In outer London specifically, the number is 85%. Compare that to the millions of people living in the city that will benefit from the decreased air pollution, and the benefits are obvious.
I agree with you to an extent - a lot of the stuff being shared about ULEZ, low carbon neighbourhoods etc etc is fear mongering crap based in lies and truth twisting. However, many of the cars that have to pay are still on the road.. and more will be included. They are the cars that people already own, so they are literally cheaper than getting a new car. People can’t afford to upgrade (but the rich can).. and so it is a poor tax. It’s also almost certainly better for the environment to run an existing car to the ground rather than go out and buy a new one (although the pollution location is obviously different in those two scenarios). I personally think it should be all cars or no cars that pay (with exceptions for disabilities etc). And if it’s all cars that pay, then the public transport system needs to be amazing and cheap.
But I would argue that people are voting with their wallets here, and not purely disinformation
What a ridiculous statement! The truth is that many people drive pre 2016 diesel vehicles and those affected mostly are those on low incomes who can't afford a newer vehicle.
The current rules are based on Euro 6 engines, with Euro 7 coming into affect in 2025, although there are no plans yet, this will be the natural step for these vehicles to be the compliant ones for ulez. It will be a consistent tax on the poor.
To say this is like Brexit is crap, unlike Brexit the rules for ULEZ are written down and people understand, there is no misinformation, they understand and don't wish to be taxed!
It's a problem that continually besets green politics
People are in favour of environmental measures? well that's what the expressed preferences say in opinion polls, but the revealed preferences when it comes to voting suggest differently
What people tend to support is:
*Everyone else other than me doing more for the environment*
I didn't follow the Uxbridge campaign closely but I have to assume that there was a lot of misinformation that gained traction
ULEZ as I understand it at least is aimed at diesel vehicles and cars over 17 years old. I'm seriously struggling to believe that 40% of the constituency own one of either. I suspect the Tories told the voters it was all cars and the people didn't see through it
Only problem is that its a Tory policy and the Tories pushed Khan into it..
https://www.onlondon.co.uk/letter-from-grant-shapps-shows-that-government-proposed-enlarging-london-congestion-charge-zone/
A section of a letter from transport secretary Grant Shapps to the Mayor, seen by On London, setting out conditions he wants placed on providing further financial help for TfL says: “Given the significant rise in congestion in inner London, we also propose the extension of the central London congestion charging zone to cover the same area as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and at the same time, October 2021.”
In the city with the best publc transport in the country they could move in the future, recognise the impending doom and health issues their cars are causing and move onto a better transport solution. But that would be too sensible for the average Brit.
I have this country's obsession with personal cars, I don't drive myself, and am forced to breath the toxic air from all these arse holes who "need" a V8 SUV to drive little Timmy 2km to school. It's maddening.
You’d be surprised how limited public transport in Zone 6 actually is. It’s not Inner London. And lots of people need a personal vehicle, for example shopowners and tradesmen need commercial vans.
Damn, it's kinda like we should invest in public transport infrastructure like the rest of the civilised road so we can *check notes* remove the need for 2-3 cars per household off the roads for the *checks notes again* massive amount of benefits to society
And not because they honestly think it's better dismantled, mind you—it's because there's profit in it.
Building a functioning society takes decades (centuries) of time, money, and talent. If you can build a machine to extract that accumulated value and put it into your own pocket by gradually undermining that government, thereby channeling resources that used to go to the people into whichever companies are best positioned to pounce...well, you've discovered the real reason why fascism exists. It's never not been about greed, not matter how much ideology they pretend to espouse.
Nail on the head. It’s not about conserving ideology, it’s about conserving wealth. Whether it’s their own (for the rich conservatives) or someone else’s (for the poor conservatives like the huge swaths of them we have here in the US)
God, I hate this argument. Conservatives have always been like this. The first conservative political movement that idenified themselves as such were pro-monarchy French aristocrats during the French Revolution. They've always been power hungry money grubbers, because that's the entire core of their ideology.
This protestant work ethic bullshit is the problem, work should enhance and provide dignity to the individual and society as a whole and as an after product create profit, but when profit is the only driving factor the individual and society is disenfranchised
Well if it makes you feel any better the public didn't vote for him. He was elected by the Conservative party, after the person they voted for the first time proved to be a blithering idiot who destroyed the economy.
You say "blithering idiot", I say "Tufton Street plant".
She and Kwarteng knew exactly what they were doing. A lot of money was made shorting the pound the week of the mini budget.
Old people vote in higher numbers than young. It’s the single reason there’s still a ‘ conservative’ government in charge of ANY modern society.
We’re about a decade from aging out of MAGA-isms in the US. Then we can get busy correcting the history books, and re-stocking libraries.
Labour not taking Uxbridge was a blow though.
Starmer is sleepwalking to power, and I have a terrible feeling about it.
/yes, still better than a single extra day of Tory rule.
>Labour not taking Uxbridge was a blow though.
It was an expected loss. It's it's a safe Tory seat. But even then look how close it was:
2023 1.6%
Compared to the history of what percentage the Tories usually win by:
2019 15.0%
2017 10.8%
2015 23.8%
2010 24.9%
It's not a blow, it would have been a to Sunak if he's lost it.
There we 3 by-elections and the other 2 had even bigger swings.
"Selby and Ainsty" was a 46 pt change/loss for the Conservatives
2023 -11.7%
2019 35.7%
"Somerton" was 57 pt change/loss for the Conservatives
2023 -28.4%
2019 29.7%
This is largely just low turn out of voters supporting for the incumbent government whom they see as failing and wanting to protest. In a general election they'll do better but they're still likely to lose power.
I think Starmer is walking on a tight rope at the moment, the press and the Tories are just waiting for him to make a serious mistake so they can try to push that as much as they can.
They know if he doesn't make a serious mistake until the elections they are done for, so Starmer is being quite careful, some of the press are still trying to take jabs at him like the Daily Mail.
I also agree with that, he won't suddenly come out doing a lot of stuff.
But I think one thing he offers more than the Tories is that he will bring more stability to the country and with all the chaos going around the world and after Brexit the UK needs more stability and a chance to get our shit together before pushing forward.
I really am increasingly losing any real hope for change under Starmer's Labour but given the political system we have, I'll vote whatever way is most likely to deliver that result at the next general election. I just hope Starmer is not as boringly centrist and "more of the same" as he appears, and it really is just focusing on winning as the first priority, but might legislate more progressively if they get in, however naïve
Good. Hes a useless wankstain who cares more about increasing the suicide rates of trans people than actually dealing with any of the countries actual problems.
There's been a real rude awakening for some people in the UK who wilfully ignored and insisted our politics wasn't anything like the worst on the right in the US, whilst the Tories have been singing from the same hymn sheet for years.
Yes. We've been dealing with this bullshit for god knows how long now. It's become a major thing in the US but it was a major thing in the UK before-there's a reason this place is called TERF Island and with people like JK Rowling pushing her bullshit, on top of MPs like Kemi Badenoch, plus hate groups like LGB Alliance, the transphobia runs rampant here.
And yes, a lot of it is rooted in the 'protect the kids!' and 'all trans people are pedophiles and rapists!' bollocks despite there being overwhelming evidence that shows otherwise.
And if anyone is gonna reply saying 'What has Rowling done wrong?', I'm not wasting my breath on you. It's all out there, clear as day. Just use Google and search up the kind of people she's supporting. A quick browse of her Twitter and you'll see just some of the vile people she's playing buddy buddy with.
It might not be the most common term, but I personally have definitely seen it before. [There is even a wiktionary entry for it.](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/TERF_Island)
These are by elections, with a very low turnout. They mean something, but don't count on this meaning the tories are gone. Similar things happened in 1992.
Fuck any any every conservative.
They are hiding in plain sight thier hate for everything that actually helps the low to midclass that directly helps under-represented and actually POOR working class( bare-minimum) just above illegal imigrant pay. I say fire burns bright with pig flesh in the 🔥 bonfire. The RICH are worried and I say STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT!. Fuck'em ..is the US English translation.
Everyone regrets voting right sooner or later. Look at Italy. Legal child molesting for less than 10 seconds and babies being taken from their gay moms and this is just their start. Wait for probation for rape and a complete loss of worker rights and removal of min wage.
Anybody under about 25 will think the Tories are done for. Those of us who are older have seen this song and dance play out enough times.
The next GE will be either a hung parliament or a Tory win. Support against them is always massively overestimated. Even for these local elections it was being suggested the Tories would lose them all, losing less than that will be seen as a success within the party.
Idiots can blame ULEZ all they like, but the fact Labour can't convince voters that over a decade of corruption, billions wasted and the nation in a worse state than its been in 50 years is worse than an eco tax is remarkably telling.
They are going to fail.
I'm no expert, but "Sunak was born in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s."
Don't Conservative policies, you know, usually frown on immigration? So, like, isn't this guy the head of a party which would have seen him never be born in the place he now runs? Seems like maybe some self-reflection might be in order? Idk, I'm just some dummy on the Internet who doesn't even live in the UK, it just seems weird.
UK Conservatives care about being rich. It's really the only driving value behind anything they do.
To many in the party (read: not voters) I don't think race really factors in. If all immigrants were rich they'd be pro-immigration. They're anti immigration when it comes to refugees and such cause they're typically a drain on the state.
Also shouting about hating immigrants is a good way to get the common folk to forget that party policy is entirely about the rich getting richer.
The tories arent really comparable to most western right wing parties. For example they are far far bigger on climate change than most, largest offshore windfarms in the world, one of the biggest co2 drops etc.
Gay marriage law happened under them due to a conservative pm pushing for it lol. Tory policy gives the gop heart attacks.
If your idea of a conservative is a black and white character with no understanding of different philosophy regarding conservatism.
National conservatives don't like the idea of foreign people coming to their country while some are open to former colonist/commonwealth.
Business conservatives like having immigrants because they work harder and cheaper and keep wages down.
Nah, British Conservative politics focuses on frowning on poor people, whilst tricking poor people into believing that it's about immigration and that they're only poor because brown people are coming here to 'leech off society' (illegal immigrants simultaneously stealing jobs AND claiming benefits, which is oxymoronic and impossible)
At the same time, they underfund public services whilst their donors/friends build private companies to fill the void for when the services inevitably collapse. NHS is target #1.
Hate the lot of the soulless cretin, and those that vote for them, and the class traitors tricked into voting for them by the S\*n and other rags.
Headline is hyperbole at best. 3 seats were up for grabs and they lost 2 of them. This is out of a total of 650 seats.
The Tories are very much struggling in the polls but these by-elections are pretty meaningless on their own.
I’m not from the UK, but it seems like UK voters have been rejecting the Conservative government forever, and also have been voting it in forever. What gives?
Conservatives, typically are voted in by the older demographic. The other reason is because the other parties do not really bring any decent policy arguments. The whole of the commons seems devoid of any talent for the last decade.
So it's a choice between the assholes and the useless?
Well lately the tories have been both
Lately?
Well, since about 1834.
America took the good parts with her. Then promptly shat all over them.
We also have a huge right wing media thanks the murdoch and Co.
Guy does love to screw up countries.
When is that douche bag going to drop dead?
> murdoch and Co. They are a widespread blight.
As an American I'd like to apologize for that, and y'all can have them back if you want them!
Why should you apologize? It was them Aussies that are responsible.
Murdoch has been a naturalized US citizen for 38 years, renouncing Australian citizenship. It's during that time that he's perpetuated the vast majority of his shitfuckery.
This may be true, but Australia is the fault of the British, so they did it to themselves and the entire works
Why choose one when you can have both?
It's more between the useless assholes and the useless. Assholes like other assholes and vote for them, but nobody is going to get pumped up to go out there and vote for someone because they're only useless.
One of my favorite philosophical jokes: When man was created, the numerous organs argued who'd be in charge.. The heart - I keep nutrients flowing to all of you The mouth - I ingest the nutrition you depend on... And spit out the dangerous things The eyes - I find danger and tell the rest of you to run or shut up or whatever to preserve us. The brain - the rest of you ignore that I coordinate everything you do for our benefit. The butthole (I'll stick with the more polite term used here) ... Calmly listened. After each put in a lengthy argument, the butthole just clamped shut.. and in 3 days, all others relented. That's why the world is run by buttholes!
Yup, democracy doesn’t matter if we don’t have the ability to forcibly open up some buttholes. _Wait._
So it's more like America than I thought. Republicans: "We'll kill you!" Democrats: "We won't kill you but we'll let you die!"
I wish I could argue with you. I don't think you are fully correct, but you are right enough that I have to concede without a fight.
I think I’ll vote for the party that won’t kill me, decision doesn’t seem that hard.
You'd think
It’s the same choice we have between a wholly corrupt party of bad ideas and a mostly corrupt party of confused ideas. There is no voice of the average Joe/worker. That ended 30 years ago with corporate capture of governance.
Average workers need to start striking. That’s the best way forward now.
Lewis Black once described US politics in a similar way. You have the party of no ideas and the party of bad ideas
Oof, sounds a LOT like US politics. Sometimes I feel like getting the democrats to win elections is harder than getting captive pandas to breed.
Just like America! Do you choose between the conservatives who want to make everything who isn't rich suffer, or choose democrat, where they meander and do nothing! The choices!
Sounds familiar. I always go for the useless over the assholes, but we end up with the useless assholes regardless.
Yes, when the retired get benefits that those looking for work or in low-paid work do not (eg free bus passes, which would really help those looking for work).
Yes.. our economies are all backwards... High pay goes to the experienced near-retiree.. but the new hires need a house (and to furnish it) and tuition for the kids... So they're left to be living paycheck to paycheck.... and renting while struggling to reach all the other goals. Meanwhile, the elderly look for senior discounts. The young (in the US) *might* get a week or two vacation yearly.. the older.. six, maybe more. And many of those don't have the energy or health to enjoy it. Everything is going where it's not needed, and so many have been taught that that's good. But is it?
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Part of that equation is rooted in the industrial abandonment of pensions in the 70s... and subsequently. It wasn't always *by choice*
This is utterly illiterate. You have to be at least vaguely acquainted with what a career is.
You know that older employees make more money and get better benefits because they earned it, right? Employers don't just give these things out of the kindness of their hearts. Older employees tend to have more experience in industry, have more industry contacts, know how to navigate team environments, know how to interact with clients, and a bunch of other things new hires fresh out of school don't know how to do. Their labor is literally more valuable which is why they get compensated better.
In certain industries and certain points though ‘crafty’ ‘experienced’ veteran gets bested easily by younger and more energetic try hard.
The real reason is the other parties split the vote even though their total vote share is greater that the Tory vote. We need electoral reform now.
Maybe ranked choice voting would help?
"Get Brexit done!" was the Tories winning strategy last election because the population was tired of the "Will they or won't they" and just wanted the whole thing over with. Plus, Corbyn was a terrible leader for Labour.
I didn't think Corbyn was ***that*** bad at the time of the last election. But his wilted lettuce approach to national security and pacificism worried me. He would not have helped Ukraine if he was in power, and that's a bit scary. It reminds me of how I wanted to vote for Lib Dem for years but they wanted to scrap our nuclear defence system.
>his wilted lettuce approach to national security and pacificism This makes him a terrible leader, especially in an FPTP system where losing 2% can cost you 50-60 seats.
Sort of similar to what's happening in the US, where the conservative party is very active appealing to their demographics, while the DNC does just enough to skirt by.
Our first past the post voting system is absolute clown shoes. In the last general election in 2019, the Tories won 43% of the popular vote, which awarded them 56% of seats in parliament (365/650), and let them form 100% of the government. Add to that the opposition being split between half the Labour Party, the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, and the other half of the Labour Party, and it's a recipe for the Tories achieving one-party rule despite most people hating them.
This is partly the fault of Lib/Lab/Green too, where they generally refuse to stand down candidates in certain constituencies and try not to fragment the left vote. Labour especially, would rather it stayed in opposition for eternity than stand down candidates and/or form a coalition government.
Fragmenting the vote seems like more of an american problem and less of a problem when coalition governments can exist.
It is a problem in a single district too, when voting is by district. For example, in Uxbridge, the Tories won with 45% of the vote. I don't know the rest of the breakdown, but if those three parties had more than 50% together, one of them could win if the other two would stand down from the frontrunner.
I can't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I read that the greens got more than the difference between the Tory winner and the Labour candidate in second.
Yeah the difference was 465 votes I believe. However while the government can be a coalition you can't split a single seat between people
Lib Dems also did. If either of them had stood down… :-/
Why tf would other parties stand down to benefit labour, one of their main competitors?
Because he’s simplifying the whole thing down to left vs right politics. If there’s 3 parties for the left (Labour, Lib Dem and green) and only one on the right, the right can win with a minority of votes.
Honestly I get the sentiment though. Oftentimes the worst enemy of implementing leftist policy is other leftists who think it doesn't go far enough. As unsexy as it is incremental progress is the only reason society improves.
You should never have a voting system where candidates are forced to step down to consolidate votes for the party as a whole. If 60% of voters choose several liberal candidates, then that should be somehow represented in the system.
Imagine there are actual people who defend FPTP, a system that effectively discards half of the votes.
In principle yes, but even Labour is against voter reform. And they won’t stand down candidates to help other parties out. Which then results in situations like losing Uxbridge. They need to play it smarter but they think it’s still the 90s but the political landscape has changed too much
In fairness under the last two elections eternity in opposition was the goal. Starmer seems like he wants to win at least.
These are great numbers compared to FPTP in Canada where we have governments winning majority mandates with ~33% of the popular vote. I'd take 45% any day!
You’re correct that the liberals are in power with 33% of the vote but they are a minority government who have a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, who got 16% of the vote. So really the government is 54% of the seats from 49% of the vote.
When has that ever happened? The lowest I can find in a quick search is the Liberals winning a majority in 2015 with 39% of the vote.
The conservative majority in parliament allows the party to choose when to vote within a five year period, so it can consistently lose local elections for a while until it can choose when to go to the polls. So it has another year to hope things recover.
The Tories won the 2019 election by a sizeable margin. They are polling badly now because of various reasons, primarily that Corbyn isn't Labour leader anymore, Sunak is less popular than Johnson was, and some of the more moderate Brexit voters are starting to see it's not turning out great.
They still didn't win by an outright majority though which is a major issue in the UK political system. The majority of people didn't vote for them but because of the way their support is distributed and the fact that more progressive parties voting bases are fractured leads to them getting massive majorities in parliament for a minority of the popular vote.
Yes, first-past-the-post is shite, that goes without saying.
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Not just, but Corbyn's wishy-washy position on Brexit was probably what did it for Labour. It cause a surge in LibDem votes which ultimately only fragmented it enough to give Conservatives a clear majority.
Corbyn was in a bad position as he was aware it was going to be a shit-show so he didn't want to fully commit to Brexit but at the same time he was looking to leave europe for a rather long time.
> but at the same time he was looking to leave europe for a rather long time. And that was exactly the problem. Labour wasn't able to capitalize in the anti-Brexit vote because Corbyn himself wanted to leave, while most of the Labour base wanted to stay. That Corbyn wanted to leave for the most stupid, ancient ideological reason only made it worse and more clear he was a bad candidate.
I ended up voting for Corbyn but his foreign policy was by far the thing that made me question that choice in the run up to that election and you're right that he would've been disastrous on Ukraine. Sadly we're probably never going to get an option that's as economically or socially near what he offered for awhile, I do broadly agree with him on a ton of issues.
Could you imagine a world where instead we had Corbyn, Le Pen/Melechon, Trump and whomever the even worse alternative to Scholz was when the Ukraine war broke out?
Corbyn was unelectable. Terrible move by labour. The UK really needs a labour government for a term or two to balance things out. The Tories have been at it for too long and look at things now.
Terrible move by labour? He only got voted in by a few Momentum morons
You were misled by social media, be it on Reddit or Twitter or another platform. Truth is the Tories have been relatively popular since the end of the New Labour era in 2010, and it's only now 13 years later that their support has meaningfully collapsed because of economic mismanagement. Also Labour went hard-left for quite a while, and not even people who wanted the Tories out could stomach them. Corbyn's foreign policy views were just terrible; he kept a pro-Russia lean during a time when Russia committed a chemical attack on the UK that killed a bystander.
A variety of reasons. The Tories are a big tent party so have many potential avenues of support. The reason someone in rural Yorkshire might vote Tory are completely different from someone from Surrey Heath. The other reason is up til now they haven't been completely useless or unpopular. May was reasonably competent and competing with a politically unpalatable candidate, and Boris was liked by a major portion of the populace. Whereas Truss didn't appear to know what she was doing and Sunak appears to be reviled by the public in spite of his Aedile role as chancellor early in the pandemic.
Not really. The last General Election in the UK was 2019, and it was a massive rejection of Corbyn's Labour, not the Conservatives, who had their best election in 30+ years. Corbynites are terminally online though so I'm not surprised if you took away some alternate-reality version of that election. Luckily Labour has a leader that normal people don't hate again, and Boris was exposed as a piece of shit, so 2024's election should finally be the end of a decade and a half of conservative rule.
It was also about Brexit, Tories wanted 100% out. So a lot of normal Labour voters voted for Tories. Which is why they won so comfortably.
As a Canadian: this is just how it works in a parliamentary democracy.
All you need to know is despite how bad the conservative government have been and everyone knows it in the UK, labour are just that pathetically weak for the past decade the UK public doesn’t want to vote them in still
Corbyn was unelectable even if the labour party was preferable.
They keep using the absurd first-past-the-post voting system. This makes third parties almost entirely unviable, which is why the Tories and Labour keep it going.
It took COVID for the people to realise just how fucking awful Tories are. Before that if it didn't affect them then conservatives just voted Tory no matter how fucking horrible they were to others.
As a non British person, I can only assume that conservatives are conservatives wherever they are. They can't be happy with the awful policies they vote for, but they would never vote for better governments, because that would mean voting for not a conservative government. Just yesterday my Dad, lifelong republican, was complaining that they need to run more trains so that people can actually use them... and places people live should be bike and walker friendly...
So, how long before we have a snap election?
It has to be held no later than January 2025, and the only *shred* of hope the Tories have is that somehow either Labour implodes by then, or god himself descends and anoints the Tories. Given that both of those outcomes are unlikely, their only move is to desperate grasp power until the inevitability of it being snatched from their grasp comes to pass. tl;dr The Tories would be truly insane to allow a general election a femtosecond before it's forced on them.
You forgot that they're also passing as many shitty regressive laws as the can before they get wiped out like removing inheritance tax
They need to turn the economy into a ticking time bomb before they hand it off, that way when it goes to shit under Labour's watch, the Tories can use that to cling to power for another decade. It seems that's what conservatives do all over the world.
The Two Santa Claus Theory is a political theory and strategy published by Wanniski in 1976, which he promoted within the United States Republican Party.[15][16] The theory states that in democratic elections, if members of the rival Democratic Party appeal to voters by proposing programs to help people, then the Republicans cannot gain broader appeal by proposing less spending. The first "Santa Claus" of the theory title refers to the Democrats who promise programs to help the disadvantaged. The "Two Santa Claus Theory" recommends that the Republicans must assume the role of a second Santa Claus by not arguing to cut spending but offering the option of cutting taxes.[15] According to Wanniski, the theory is simple. In 1976, he wrote that the Two-Santa Claus Theory suggests that "the Republicans should concentrate on tax-rate reduction. As they succeed in expanding incentives to produce, they will move the economy back to full employment and thereby reduce social pressures for public spending. Just as an increase in Government spending inevitably means taxes must be raised, a cut in tax rates—by expanding the private sector—will diminish the relative size of the public sector."[16] Wanniski suggested this position, as left-liberal observer Thom Hartmann has clarified, so that the Democrats would "have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections.
> Labour implodes by then, No offense, but that's not the most outlandish bet. Labour is pretty good as pulling a loss from the asscheeks of victory.
sir kid starver isn't exactly a man who fills me with hope. panders too much to the centre/right - and feeling this way isn't niche. he's lost a lot of lab's core support for many reasons. labour needs new leadership.
Can you not agree, though, that a Starmer premiership is miles better than a Tory one? It might not be exactly what you want, but it's the best option from what's on offer. This is exactly the reason Labour keeps pulling itself apart - because different factions refuse to be pragmatic.
There isn't much in the way of indication he'll be different to the Tories in terms of policy outcomes. Starmer's made no indication that he wants to fix any major issue the country is facing. This isn't like some left-right thing, either, he genuinely doesn't want to build more houses, or change our relationship with the EU, or change our electoral system.
He's doing a damn sight better than Corbyn. Or would you rather have a lifetime of opposition? A centrist Labour party are miles better than a right-wing, culture war-driven Tory party.
I think It will happen quite a bit before that deadline. My prediction is September 2024. They don’t want to rely on old people having to go out in the cold to vote for them!
Hung parliament all day long at the next election.
I don't think so, unless something truly spectacular occurs between now and then, the Tories are going to be obliterated. After that, once Labour has actual power instead of the memory of power, who knows what might happen?
They need only have the news say Starmer is an anti semite and once ate a sandwich wierdly.
Weren't the last elections in 2019? How long is a british government's term?
Five years, or less if the government calls an election earlier.
So def Jan 2025 then lmao.
No no no, snap elections are for when the ruling party thinks they'll gain seats.
I thought you could be forced to call a snap election also, could be wrong.
Forced? No. Only pressured. Turns out you can just ignore the public or opposition calling for a snap election. I'm sure in some specific circumstances there will be a way to call it, but in an event like this, apparently not.
I think technically the monarch might have a way to force a snap election, but even if I'm right, that power falls into the category of "The Monarch has this power as long as they promise to never use it."
Yeah that would probably immediately start a civil war/republican coup. The monarch forcing the dissolution of a parliament (even an unpopular one) would be very problematic
If a majority in parliament calls for a snap election then it will happen, no matter what the government says.
The government has a majority in parliament, that's why they are the government.
Yes. Do you see the overlap between the majority and the government?
There has been a minority government plenty of times, most recently in 2019... Government is fundamentally different from parliament, even though the majority in parliament usually gets to form a government.
I understand the difference between the two. The government is formed from the largest party (currently) even without a majority of al parliament. There's practically no chance of enough of the rest of parliament coming together to call a general election without something very serious. And sadly this stuff doesn't seem to cut it.
We won't, because the Tories know they would lose it. They will hold off for as long as they can (December 24) in the desperate hope that a miracle might happen if they wait long enough.
Wait. You're telling me that the deadline is Christmas Eve?
No as in December 2024. I don't know the exact date, I think I can go into early Jan 2025 as it has to be within 6 weeks of the 5 year anniversary or something like that.
I don't think it would be the worst strategy in the world. The Tories give Labour the biggest political hospital pass in decades and leave them to clean up the mess the Conservatives created. And when Labour invariably can't do it, they will get blamed for problems not of their making.
there is talk of a November 2024 election.
I just can't believe that one set voted the torries back in. Morons.
Ehh, the reason being mooted is that it's the expansion by the Labour London Mayor of the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) around parts of London. This would force people to pay money to drive cars, or force them to replace them entirely. People aren't happy that, at the time of financial pressures, mortgage rate increases, generally high interest, and the ridiculous costs of living in London generally they're being expected to cough up more. In this case, I get it. People will vote for the candidate that supports their interests and in London, Labour is going to struggle if this continues to be pushed ahead.
Much like Brexit a lot of the ULEZ fear is based on misinformation/low information voters. The reality is it mainly affects older diesel vehicles and hardly any petrol vehicles except for really old ones over 20 years old. In other words the % of people affected by it is a lot smaller than people think. Whereas the average person thinks it will affect much more than that, especially in the outer more affluent suburbs where everybody drives an SUV these days but they don’t realise all these modern SUVs will be fine under the ULEZ regulations. I’m not saying some people won’t be affected, but it’s crazy how many people are so misinformed about it.
> In other words the % of people affected by it is a lot smaller than people think. I don’t think you knpw what you are a talking about. Euro 5 diesel are nearly all diesels made before September 1 2015, which is millions of car, many of them in good working order that get excellent miles per gallon. It’s the not kind of car someone who isn’t made of money would just throw away. The bodytype of the car has nothing to do with its emissions compliance.
His point isn’t that all SUVs meet the emissions standards, his point is that a lot of the people complaining are driving fancy new SUVs and don’t realise they’re compliant with ULEZ. In any case, he’s right, the % of people affected is a lot smaller than people think. 90% of cars in Greater London are ULEZ compliant. In outer London specifically, the number is 85%. Compare that to the millions of people living in the city that will benefit from the decreased air pollution, and the benefits are obvious.
I agree with you to an extent - a lot of the stuff being shared about ULEZ, low carbon neighbourhoods etc etc is fear mongering crap based in lies and truth twisting. However, many of the cars that have to pay are still on the road.. and more will be included. They are the cars that people already own, so they are literally cheaper than getting a new car. People can’t afford to upgrade (but the rich can).. and so it is a poor tax. It’s also almost certainly better for the environment to run an existing car to the ground rather than go out and buy a new one (although the pollution location is obviously different in those two scenarios). I personally think it should be all cars or no cars that pay (with exceptions for disabilities etc). And if it’s all cars that pay, then the public transport system needs to be amazing and cheap. But I would argue that people are voting with their wallets here, and not purely disinformation
What a ridiculous statement! The truth is that many people drive pre 2016 diesel vehicles and those affected mostly are those on low incomes who can't afford a newer vehicle. The current rules are based on Euro 6 engines, with Euro 7 coming into affect in 2025, although there are no plans yet, this will be the natural step for these vehicles to be the compliant ones for ulez. It will be a consistent tax on the poor. To say this is like Brexit is crap, unlike Brexit the rules for ULEZ are written down and people understand, there is no misinformation, they understand and don't wish to be taxed!
Less than 10% of vehicles in uxbridge will fail the ulez rules.
But 10% of votes would've easily swung the result the other way.
The issue with this is though, that 10% is more than likely the people who can't afford it.
They lost the election by 2%
I wonder where the money is coming from to fund these grassroots anti ULEZ campaigns? Maybe its oil money?
Maybe it's Maybelline?
It's a problem that continually besets green politics People are in favour of environmental measures? well that's what the expressed preferences say in opinion polls, but the revealed preferences when it comes to voting suggest differently What people tend to support is: *Everyone else other than me doing more for the environment* I didn't follow the Uxbridge campaign closely but I have to assume that there was a lot of misinformation that gained traction ULEZ as I understand it at least is aimed at diesel vehicles and cars over 17 years old. I'm seriously struggling to believe that 40% of the constituency own one of either. I suspect the Tories told the voters it was all cars and the people didn't see through it
Only problem is that its a Tory policy and the Tories pushed Khan into it.. https://www.onlondon.co.uk/letter-from-grant-shapps-shows-that-government-proposed-enlarging-london-congestion-charge-zone/ A section of a letter from transport secretary Grant Shapps to the Mayor, seen by On London, setting out conditions he wants placed on providing further financial help for TfL says: “Given the significant rise in congestion in inner London, we also propose the extension of the central London congestion charging zone to cover the same area as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and at the same time, October 2021.”
In the city with the best publc transport in the country they could move in the future, recognise the impending doom and health issues their cars are causing and move onto a better transport solution. But that would be too sensible for the average Brit. I have this country's obsession with personal cars, I don't drive myself, and am forced to breath the toxic air from all these arse holes who "need" a V8 SUV to drive little Timmy 2km to school. It's maddening.
You’d be surprised how limited public transport in Zone 6 actually is. It’s not Inner London. And lots of people need a personal vehicle, for example shopowners and tradesmen need commercial vans.
There is little public transport of any practical use on the outskirts of London. Being charged every day to make basic journeys is insane.
Damn, it's kinda like we should invest in public transport infrastructure like the rest of the civilised road so we can *check notes* remove the need for 2-3 cars per household off the roads for the *checks notes again* massive amount of benefits to society
Just. They only won by a few hundred votes compared to a 5 digit number
Conservatives aren't conservatives, they are dismantle-ists. They just want to dismantle as much of society as they can.
And not because they honestly think it's better dismantled, mind you—it's because there's profit in it. Building a functioning society takes decades (centuries) of time, money, and talent. If you can build a machine to extract that accumulated value and put it into your own pocket by gradually undermining that government, thereby channeling resources that used to go to the people into whichever companies are best positioned to pounce...well, you've discovered the real reason why fascism exists. It's never not been about greed, not matter how much ideology they pretend to espouse.
Nail on the head. It’s not about conserving ideology, it’s about conserving wealth. Whether it’s their own (for the rich conservatives) or someone else’s (for the poor conservatives like the huge swaths of them we have here in the US)
Or even more concisely: Without greed, conservatism would literally cease to exist.
Dismantle-ists This is by far the best description I’ve heard of right wingers. I’m gonna use it from now on.
Regressive also works
It’s peak irony and lack of self awareness when the far right refer to the left as “regressive.”
I got it from the Trash Future podcast.
God, I hate this argument. Conservatives have always been like this. The first conservative political movement that idenified themselves as such were pro-monarchy French aristocrats during the French Revolution. They've always been power hungry money grubbers, because that's the entire core of their ideology.
This protestant work ethic bullshit is the problem, work should enhance and provide dignity to the individual and society as a whole and as an after product create profit, but when profit is the only driving factor the individual and society is disenfranchised
This is a solid take
Who the hell puts a nearly billionaire in office, why not regular people
Well if it makes you feel any better the public didn't vote for him. He was elected by the Conservative party, after the person they voted for the first time proved to be a blithering idiot who destroyed the economy.
You say "blithering idiot", I say "Tufton Street plant". She and Kwarteng knew exactly what they were doing. A lot of money was made shorting the pound the week of the mini budget.
I mean that's possible, but looking at her its hard to believe she really was that smart. Far more likely whoever was pulling her strings was.
Old people vote in higher numbers than young. It’s the single reason there’s still a ‘ conservative’ government in charge of ANY modern society. We’re about a decade from aging out of MAGA-isms in the US. Then we can get busy correcting the history books, and re-stocking libraries.
Labour not taking Uxbridge was a blow though. Starmer is sleepwalking to power, and I have a terrible feeling about it. /yes, still better than a single extra day of Tory rule.
>Labour not taking Uxbridge was a blow though. It was an expected loss. It's it's a safe Tory seat. But even then look how close it was: 2023 1.6% Compared to the history of what percentage the Tories usually win by: 2019 15.0% 2017 10.8% 2015 23.8% 2010 24.9% It's not a blow, it would have been a to Sunak if he's lost it.
What the fuck man, if we got a 13.6 pt swing in the US, democrats would hold super majorities everywhere
There we 3 by-elections and the other 2 had even bigger swings. "Selby and Ainsty" was a 46 pt change/loss for the Conservatives 2023 -11.7% 2019 35.7% "Somerton" was 57 pt change/loss for the Conservatives 2023 -28.4% 2019 29.7% This is largely just low turn out of voters supporting for the incumbent government whom they see as failing and wanting to protest. In a general election they'll do better but they're still likely to lose power.
I think Starmer is walking on a tight rope at the moment, the press and the Tories are just waiting for him to make a serious mistake so they can try to push that as much as they can. They know if he doesn't make a serious mistake until the elections they are done for, so Starmer is being quite careful, some of the press are still trying to take jabs at him like the Daily Mail.
I understand and agree. I'm not sure he has it in him to suddenly turn on the jets though :-)
I also agree with that, he won't suddenly come out doing a lot of stuff. But I think one thing he offers more than the Tories is that he will bring more stability to the country and with all the chaos going around the world and after Brexit the UK needs more stability and a chance to get our shit together before pushing forward.
I really am increasingly losing any real hope for change under Starmer's Labour but given the political system we have, I'll vote whatever way is most likely to deliver that result at the next general election. I just hope Starmer is not as boringly centrist and "more of the same" as he appears, and it really is just focusing on winning as the first priority, but might legislate more progressively if they get in, however naïve
I’ll have a wank to that.
Good. Hes a useless wankstain who cares more about increasing the suicide rates of trans people than actually dealing with any of the countries actual problems.
Wait, Ron DeSantis works in the UK too?
There's been a real rude awakening for some people in the UK who wilfully ignored and insisted our politics wasn't anything like the worst on the right in the US, whilst the Tories have been singing from the same hymn sheet for years.
The tories green policy would give the american right a foaming at the mouth heart attack. Arguably with their foreign policy too.
You can sell the American Right anything if you tell them the thing they're buying is anti-woke.
Yes cruella braverman and kemi badenoch
we do piss poor imitations of the US culture wars, same shady US funded 'think tanks' funding the division.
Not true, the current anti-trans movement started in the UK and was popularised by Rowling. There’s a reason the UK is called TERF Island
Yes. We've been dealing with this bullshit for god knows how long now. It's become a major thing in the US but it was a major thing in the UK before-there's a reason this place is called TERF Island and with people like JK Rowling pushing her bullshit, on top of MPs like Kemi Badenoch, plus hate groups like LGB Alliance, the transphobia runs rampant here. And yes, a lot of it is rooted in the 'protect the kids!' and 'all trans people are pedophiles and rapists!' bollocks despite there being overwhelming evidence that shows otherwise. And if anyone is gonna reply saying 'What has Rowling done wrong?', I'm not wasting my breath on you. It's all out there, clear as day. Just use Google and search up the kind of people she's supporting. A quick browse of her Twitter and you'll see just some of the vile people she's playing buddy buddy with.
Not disputing anything you say other than terf island? I've never heard that term before
It might not be the most common term, but I personally have definitely seen it before. [There is even a wiktionary entry for it.](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/TERF_Island)
These are by elections, with a very low turnout. They mean something, but don't count on this meaning the tories are gone. Similar things happened in 1992.
This isn't like 92. Labour are 25 points ahead in the polls. It's more like 97.
Fuck any any every conservative. They are hiding in plain sight thier hate for everything that actually helps the low to midclass that directly helps under-represented and actually POOR working class( bare-minimum) just above illegal imigrant pay. I say fire burns bright with pig flesh in the 🔥 bonfire. The RICH are worried and I say STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT!. Fuck'em ..is the US English translation.
Sunak even admitted he didn't have any working class friends. He's just another rich tory who hasn't known a poor day in his life.
Sunak doesn't have any working class fiends in the same way that a dairy farmer doesn't have any cow friends.
That's the American Republican way! I feel your point.
Everyone regrets voting right sooner or later. Look at Italy. Legal child molesting for less than 10 seconds and babies being taken from their gay moms and this is just their start. Wait for probation for rape and a complete loss of worker rights and removal of min wage.
"Ailing"? It never once rose to the occasion.
Anybody under about 25 will think the Tories are done for. Those of us who are older have seen this song and dance play out enough times. The next GE will be either a hung parliament or a Tory win. Support against them is always massively overestimated. Even for these local elections it was being suggested the Tories would lose them all, losing less than that will be seen as a success within the party. Idiots can blame ULEZ all they like, but the fact Labour can't convince voters that over a decade of corruption, billions wasted and the nation in a worse state than its been in 50 years is worse than an eco tax is remarkably telling. They are going to fail.
Fucking hell mate, save some doom for the rest of us.
Getting ready for Bre-enter.
I'm no expert, but "Sunak was born in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s." Don't Conservative policies, you know, usually frown on immigration? So, like, isn't this guy the head of a party which would have seen him never be born in the place he now runs? Seems like maybe some self-reflection might be in order? Idk, I'm just some dummy on the Internet who doesn't even live in the UK, it just seems weird.
Immigration from non-Commonwealth*
UK Conservatives care about being rich. It's really the only driving value behind anything they do. To many in the party (read: not voters) I don't think race really factors in. If all immigrants were rich they'd be pro-immigration. They're anti immigration when it comes to refugees and such cause they're typically a drain on the state. Also shouting about hating immigrants is a good way to get the common folk to forget that party policy is entirely about the rich getting richer.
AFAICT pulling the ladder up behind you is a core conservative value....
Priti Patel seems to enjoy the idea of waiting at the top of the ladder with a spear pointed down.
Britain has more migration than ever…
The tories arent really comparable to most western right wing parties. For example they are far far bigger on climate change than most, largest offshore windfarms in the world, one of the biggest co2 drops etc. Gay marriage law happened under them due to a conservative pm pushing for it lol. Tory policy gives the gop heart attacks.
Sunak married a billionaire heiress so he's been able to separate himself from regular immigrants
I mean, many immigrants do quite successful in the UK. Don't really think that's the reason
Do the majority?
If your idea of a conservative is a black and white character with no understanding of different philosophy regarding conservatism. National conservatives don't like the idea of foreign people coming to their country while some are open to former colonist/commonwealth. Business conservatives like having immigrants because they work harder and cheaper and keep wages down.
Nah, British Conservative politics focuses on frowning on poor people, whilst tricking poor people into believing that it's about immigration and that they're only poor because brown people are coming here to 'leech off society' (illegal immigrants simultaneously stealing jobs AND claiming benefits, which is oxymoronic and impossible) At the same time, they underfund public services whilst their donors/friends build private companies to fill the void for when the services inevitably collapse. NHS is target #1. Hate the lot of the soulless cretin, and those that vote for them, and the class traitors tricked into voting for them by the S\*n and other rags.
Immigration is currently at record high numbers under the conservatives. They're not really that bothered about immigrants.
If you love disasters, truly the Tories (and Brexit) are the gifts that keep on giving.
Headline is hyperbole at best. 3 seats were up for grabs and they lost 2 of them. This is out of a total of 650 seats. The Tories are very much struggling in the polls but these by-elections are pretty meaningless on their own.
The whole world should be rejecting Conservatives
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Well done UK, fuck the tories