Best Of

The funny thing about Starmer regretting all his Island of Strangers stuff, the only people really offended by a single phrase in a single speech (that other than that was hardly Nick Griffin giving it the big'un) aren't the people he needs to win over.

All those Red Wall voters who are concerned about immigration now just got further proof he isn't serious about dealing with it.

You don't think he needs to win over/back the Left?
It's a view (one that Team Starmer held and may still hold).

The original speech was to try and target Reform voters.

I think a good chunk of the left will vote for him to stop Reform. I am sure this BS in this interview is trying to show some ankle to them that he isn't really a mini-Nigel. I guess the question is, is it enough? And it plays in to what a lot of Corbyn types have said for a long time, is that he can't be trusted in what he says.

What he means is, "It was supposed to be a dog whistle, but instead the wrong people heard it and started comparing me to Enoch Powell."

What's the Kremlinology here? Michael Gove levers Kemi into the leadership, becomes Spectator editor, lures Shippers away from the Times, and runs a story that Kemi might be for the chop.

That Dave (pbuh) thinks Jenrick should lead the Tories at the next election, that's a biggie, especially as Dave has been helping Kemi at PMQs.

Coincidentally Gove admits to being a duplicitous snake in today's Times.

What [Gove] regrets now, he says, is being “insufficiently clear” to Cameron that he would campaign for Leave.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/michael-gove-camerons-divorce-sarah-vine-depression-dvcpbqm8n

Cant figure why anyone would listen to Cameron, he destroyed the Conservatives.

Nope, that was the Brexiteers, which even Gove privately admits.

Cameron signed up to a Blair agenda and did nothing to reverse the creeping expansion of the state. He lost the troops on the ground as what he offered wasnt conservatiism. He could quite happilu have stood up to the various factions in his party but that required a backbone and he didnt have one. He was crap a party management and hence we had the Brexit vote something we can all be grateful for and which is his overarching legacy.

Cameron spent and taxed less as a percentage of gdp than any UK PM this century

Austerity. And is the tax thing even true?
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk/hmrc-tax-receipts-and-national-insurance-contributions-for-the-uk-new-annual-bulletin

When you consider the cuts to the 50p top income tax rate Brown left, taking the lowest earners out of income tax, cuts to inheritance tax etc.

You've unaccountably omitted George Osborne raising VAT (and extending it to pasties).

I'm old enough to remember when Cornish pasties were the biggest political issue of the day.

Not everything has been bad.

He's managed Trump pretty well.

He managed last summer's unrest pretty well.

The new workers' rights are welcome.

Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.

What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.

The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.

Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.