Best Of

Right. I have an unusual commission for Basalt Bliss Magazine

I have to do a quick history of Political Lying. What are the standout lies in politics for PBers in the last decade or two, or indeed in all of history?

Brexit produced some corkers, on both sides. Any others?

For me the number one lie has to be from Gordon Brown in 1997: "I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the future."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/budget97/live/housing.shtml

People are not doing this properly. That's a broken promise not a lie. Politics is full of broken promises. They are its base currency. It's also full of deliberate misrepresentations and devious misleading language. These are not lies. "Lie" loses its specific meaning if applied to all that sort of thing.

A lie is a statement on a serious matter offered seriously that is knowingly and unequivocably false as a matter of fact. They are quite rare in politics and in life generally. Or rather they were quite rare in politics. It's one of the most pernicious Trump effects that he's normalising lying. We're not there yet but it's the direction of travel.

Enough piffle, an actual poll

More warning signs for Labour in the latest YouGov poll:

🔥 Reform UK lead is UP 4 points
🔥 Labour support DOWN 2 points
🔥 Lib Dem and Green support UP

Reform - 28% (+2)
Labour - 22% (-2)
Tories - 17% (+1)
Libs - 16% (+1)
Greens - 12% (+1)


https://x.com/kevinaschofield/status/1945041367702384652?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

With figures like these, the Greens should be given much more media coverage than they are. QT is a particularly egregious example,.

So should the Lib Dems. The main reason Reform have been so successful is their constant media coverage. The reason that Change UK and Alba never got off the ground, and any Sultana/Corbyn party won’t get off the ground, is that they got, and will get, very little media coverage.

Our media want a right wing party in power, preferably also racist and low tax. Reform could actually get them what they want.

The Times edging towards coming out for Kemi. I hope they’re right, I still think she could be good


Kemi Badenoch is right that the welfare system is a fiscal disaster

There is an obvious gap in the political market that Ms Badenoch can fill: the cause of fiscal restraint. The Tories should never have given up their belief in a smaller state, but it is welcome to see them return to it. It is ever more likely that the UK is heading for a financial crunch this autumn, as Rachel Reeves’s mishandling of the economy risks creating a vast fiscal black hole. The unsustainable welfare bill is at the heart of the problem and voters now appreciate that it must be tackled. The time for hard truths is fast approaching.


https://www.thetimes.com/article/90e60687-5fbf-4c72-8b8d-ad43d7f23694?shareToken=c72a4a00fca348000b10564bde599bd7

If only she'd been in Government in the last fifteen years, she could have done something about it.

Im sure you think that’s a zinger but do share with us how many of those years Kemi was remotely senior enough to have any influence on the Tory government’s direction and overall policies. Junior ministers have little policy power over their own department yet alone wider government policy.

Oh btw, she was only elected in 2017 so had even less time to wield her ginormous influence on Cameron, May, Boris, Liz and Rishi.

The welfare bill is out of control. The welfare bill needs to be cut dramatically. Labour just attempted badly and failed miserably.

My main point stands. She has been in Cabinet during the years the welfare bill ran out of control.

I am well aware you don't approve of me posting on here, but you can't slap me down with a counter factual. She was in Cabinet when the welfare bill grew.

What is your obsession with making crap up about what other posters say/think? It’s up there with your Leon obsession.

Your point about Kemi would be effective if she had been PM or CotE, as she was not she would have absolutely zero control or influence over the growth or not of the Welfare bill during her time in government - you know that but in a desperate attempt to throw out attacks on the enemy you don’t actually use your brain.

Your main point was “ If only she'd been in Government in the last fifteen years, she could have done something about it” which was dumb as pointed out for the fact that she wasn’t in government for the last fifteen years and had no particular influence over government policy. So your main point doesn’t stand and you are trying to shift it because you also realise that your main point was pretty dim.

She was in Cabinet from 2022 until 2024.

She is perfectly entitled to point out that welfare is out of control and that once in Government she plans on doing something about it. However she couches it.in terms of Reeves being responsible. Granted Reeves, Starmer and Kendall made one hell of a mess of their botched Welfare Bill, but they didn't create the initial problem.

My point stands. Did she at any point tell Truss and Sunak. "Blimey the welfare caper, it's out of control don't you know?

And I can't promise, but I'll try to post less frequently. I'm currently on holiday so I've gone a bit mad with the posting, so sorry for that

I disagree with you on many things but read all of your posts when I can and would be very disappointed if you felt you had to reduce posting for any reason other than personal choice.

I also tend to post in bursts, mostly because of work pressures, so understand entirely what it is like to suddenly have the time and the inclination to get stuck in.

To be fair to PB this is a right wing blog, and I have noted that many non- right wingers seem to be posting less frequently than they once did.

As it is a right wing blog it is extremely rude of a centrist Dad guest to come along and dump all over Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, oh and @Leon. I have been doing rather a lot of dumping, and if it spoils it for a not insubstantial number of other posters, perhaps I should try to desist a bit more successfully than I have in the past. I can't promise, but I'll try.

It really isn't 'a right wing blog'. It has posters from across the spectrum, fairly representatively, although Reform are significantly underrepeesented - largely because we are disproportionately mide class (so what we actually have is the full range of middle class opinions).
Some left wingers inhabit such a left wing bubble that they find any space in which everyone is NOT left wing 'right wing'. But pb really isn't such a place.
Your constant mentioning of Leon is odd.

It would be interesting to do a poll of PB contributors & see where the current centre of gravity lies, both in party & policy terms. Have to make sure it’s not a voodoo poll of course, or else the curse of our good host will descend upon us all.

It depends on whether you weight the PB contributors by number of posts, and include lurkers and low intensity posters.

Mostly we are a male centrist middle aged middle class bunch, with a few notable exceptions. Both far left and far right are sparsely represented, as are a number of other areas, Greens and Islamists for example.

At the moment we are in the summer silly season and there isn't much to bet on, so my interest has dropped.

I think we are in a situation where most of us are finding our natural parties somewhat if not majorly flawed so we are all grumpy about the mess they are in, all want them to be better at being what we feel they should be and are mostly in a cycle of negative politics, essentially against all the other parties rather than being particularly for your natural party.

I can’t really think of anyone on here who really thinks “their team” has it nailed at the moment. Tories like me are super frustrated with the past few years and the current malaise, Labourites such as MexicanPete or BJO have issues with Labour of varying extremes, I don’t think any of the reform curious posters are fully bought into the party or policies.

There isn’t any rallying point, a bright shining light. If PB had been arounfpd in say, 1997, there probably would have been quite a large constituency on here that was very positive and energised by New Labour/Blair but at the moment is just us resorting largely to “the best of a bad lot” or trying to keep supporting your team unenthusiastically.

Yes, to a point. There are those for whom it has always been a case of "my Party, right or wrong" while many others on here, whether members, activists or supporters, have often criticised the Party of their support when they have said or sone something with which they don't agree.

I do think in an era of unprecedented volatility there are many who are politically "homeless" though all the polling I ever see suggests there are still broadly two blocs as there are in most countries and whether you call them "right" or "left" or "bourgeois" and "worker" or "red" and "blue" makes little difference. Movement within those blocs is considerable but movement across them less so.

Opinium has Ref/Con at 47% and Lab/LD/Green at 46%. It was 38-53 at the July 2024 election so the swing is 8% but that only tells a fraction of the story.