I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Yep. The funny thing will be if any of these people get seriously stung with a tax that had never even entered their heads.
If Labour wants to do any of their pet projects (on top of just day to day managing) they are going to have to introduce some serious tax rises. And with IT, NI and VAT ruled out they will have to go into new areas.
I don't know - how about extending IHT to lifetime gifts with tax payable on the spot. Bank of Mum and Dad wants to fund a house deposit - 20% (or maybe 40%?) tax payable on the spot on the transfer.
When they get clobbered with that they'll think why on earth didn't they vote for the Conservatives offering sod all. Because sod all would have been infinitely preferable.
Labour have painted themselves into a corner on taxation, they have ruled out most of the main options, and fiscal drag is already baked in to the plans. Also it is very unlikely that growth will be as fast or as large as necessary to close the tax gap. So there are likely to be a lot of indirect tax rises, and many of those are going to make a lot of people quite angry I expect.
Reeves could have her very own omnishambles budget.. this very year.
I hope so. Past experience shows that such budgets preface a further 11 or 12 years in power.
Riiiiight. OK mate.
The Omnishambles budget was 12 years ago. You know that right? And the Tories are still in power? Trying to explain anything to you is like trying to explain gravity to a chicken.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
Best of luck. Those of us on the other side did the same in 2019.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
You're currently the PB equivalent of someone standing bollock naked bar a sandwich board with "The End Is Nigh" written on it. The voters know what they're voting for. It isn't your man. Cope.
No, fuck off. You can stare at my hairy bollocks and listen to my rants for as long as my lungs hold out. And I will call you an idiot a lot - because you probably are one.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Have you been hacked by Leon?
He's voting Labour. Another example of the crazy maze we're in.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
So what does that tell you?
It tells me you can afford to pay VAT on your kids school fees.
So a depressing but perhaps utterly predictable update from my Surrey tory friend.
For weeks she has told me that for the first time in her life she wouldn’t vote for the Conservatives, that she would vote LibDem or Labour (edit or even Green), that the tory party had left her behind not the other way around, that she dislikes Rishi Sunak, that people like Badenoch and Braverman are thoroughly nasty etc. etc. etc.
And tonight? She has told me ...
… that she is voting Conservative
Why? Because her MP Jonathan Lord helped Seema Misa the sub post mistress who was imprisoned whilst pregnant whilst the LibDems’ Ed Davey didn’t listen.
To be honest, I resigned myself to her staying blue. I didn’t criticise her though I did gently point out that she could be voting for Badenoch or Braverman (whom she professes to loathe).
A certain, perhaps significant, number always return to the fold.
Cons 100-200 seats is very much in play in my opinion.
I don't think any shittiness there. An interesting anecdote because we have heard, second hand, the thoughts of the Tory friend for years now. Presumably @Heathener is of the view said Tory friend won't mind. And kudos to Heathener for reporting a final bit of anecdata which absolutely fails to fit the narrative she has been telling these last few years.
Horrible. Has the temerity to use the word "friend". "I didn't criticise her, but I did gently point out..."
Personally I can’t see how anyone can vote Tory after the past five years. That photo of HM in mourning while number 10 partied should be enough for any self respecting conservative to sit on their hands.
You'd like a one-party state with zero opposition then? Really?
What when the boot is on the other foot one day and you're wiped out?
Would you welcome that too?
What exactly have the Tories done to earn the right to be the Opposition? Cos that's what you're fighting for. Or should be.
Don't be ridiculous. There's an argument to eject from government.
Not to totally wipe them out.
That's recklessly irresponsible and borderline insane.
I must have missed your advocating for PR.
Your beef isn’t with the minority of voters who’ll vote Labour. Or if you had any intellectual honesty it wouldn’t be.
If the fantasy taxes that this Labour government are likely to impose on this board ever came to pass, then the entire national debt would be paid off in a single year. Then there'd be a proper tax cutting budget in Labour's second year.
The like of the IFS have said that none of the parties are being straight on tax. The main parties have all ruled out the usual levers for raising taxation, so what's left are mostly indirect taxes.
Labour has specifically ruled out raising the big four (income tax, national insurance, corporation tax, and VAT) that accounts for two thirds of all receipts. So all the money needed to close the spending gap will have to come from the remaining third. Short of a real economic miracle there are going to have to be a lot of tax and duty rises in all sorts of areas. Many of those will likely be very unpopular.
It wouldn't make much difference who wins tomorrow, big rises in taxation are almost certain.
The declaration times which were in the spreadsheet Matt Singh posted up and has taken down at the request of PA media form part of my GE spreadsheets...
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Have you been hacked by Leon?
He's voting Labour. Another example of the crazy maze we're in.
Nah, he is nailed on for Reform, but even he can't defend it.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
I think people are voting Labour because it's buggins turn, i.e. things are bad and have been getting bad the last few years. So let's kick the lot in power.
But they are voting Labour just to kick the current lot for being shite, without any real hope that Labour will be any better. There has been no optimism in this election campaign. No promises of improvement. Because Labour don't have any answers either.
Given their lack of a coherent plan for economic growth, plus a potential weak spot on immigration, I can see them being as unpopular as the Tories, or even worse, in a couple of years time.
Yes. I see that, but. Not handing contracts to mates. Not bollocking on about trivial culture war shite of no importance but to a handful. Accepting and fessing up that things aren't Panglossian joy for everybody. Nor trumpeting Brexit as a magic lamp solution to all our ills. Not changing PM and key ministers as often as I change my undercrackers. That should count for a fair bit.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
So what does that tell you?
That you’re boastful, along with being slightly lacking in judgment.
Can anyone explain exactly why Pensions are not subject to Inheritance Tax (other than obviously to spouse).
Seems to me that every penny should be subject to it. The purpose of tax free pension contributions is to fund your old age and stop you being dependent on the state. Not provide a bung to Tarquin and Melinda when you snuff it.
I honestly thought that when the Pensioner and spouse died that was it and the pension was no more. I assumed that was how pension companies actually made money. The idea that pensions could be inherited down the generations is a new one to me.
it will only die if an annuity was taken out , if a pension is in drawdown or not yet touched then can be passed on - a defined contribution pension is just savings in a tax wrapper really.
Personally I can’t see how anyone can vote Tory after the past five years. That photo of HM in mourning while number 10 partied should be enough for any self respecting conservative to sit on their hands.
You'd like a one-party state with zero opposition then? Really?
What when the boot is on the other foot one day and you're wiped out?
Would you welcome that too?
What exactly have the Tories done to earn the right to be the Opposition? Cos that's what you're fighting for. Or should be.
Don't be ridiculous. There's an argument to eject from government.
Not to totally wipe them out.
That's recklessly irresponsible and borderline insane.
I must have missed your advocating for PR.
Your beef isn’t with the minority of voters who’ll vote Labour. Or if you had any intellectual honesty it wouldn’t be.
Surely the electoral system should be the one that best benefits my choice?
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
So what does that tell you?
It tells me that you are trying to compensate for something.
Personally I can’t see how anyone can vote Tory after the past five years. That photo of HM in mourning while number 10 partied should be enough for any self respecting conservative to sit on their hands.
You'd like a one-party state with zero opposition then? Really?
What when the boot is on the other foot one day and you're wiped out?
Would you welcome that too?
What exactly have the Tories done to earn the right to be the Opposition? Cos that's what you're fighting for. Or should be.
Don't be ridiculous. There's an argument to eject from government.
Not to totally wipe them out.
That's recklessly irresponsible and borderline insane.
It's your job to reconstruct your party, not mine. It's your fault if that goes badly.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
Yep. The funny thing will be if any of these people get seriously stung with a tax that had never even entered their heads.
If Labour wants to do any of their pet projects (on top of just day to day managing) they are going to have to introduce some serious tax rises. And with IT, NI and VAT ruled out they will have to go into new areas.
I don't know - how about extending IHT to lifetime gifts with tax payable on the spot. Bank of Mum and Dad wants to fund a house deposit - 20% (or maybe 40%?) tax payable on the spot on the transfer.
When they get clobbered with that they'll think why on earth didn't they vote for the Conservatives offering sod all. Because sod all would have been infinitely preferable.
Not everyone values a few extra £k in their bank account versus, say, public services that work, better health services, a fairer society.
I appreciate this is hard for Tories to understand, but there it is.
I expect that Labour will probably try and tax all these people who spend all day looking at bar charts of their stocks/shares etc and who have built up massive fortunes in ISAs/SIPPs. Trying to rebalance priorities more towards people who go to work on modest incomes and are one shock away from poverty can't honestly be a bad thing in my view even though I guess I will be hit at a personal level.
I am more worried about the possible tilt towards authoritarianism and 'progressive' initiatives to try and re-engineer society, be this through social policy, criminal justice policy etc. Very worrying, particularly given the enormous majority they will probably have.
It'd be no surprise if there were fat and sugar taxes introduced on calorific food. Obesity costs a vast fortune and such measures to try to crush it would also raise quite a lot of money to help prop up the tottering healthcare system.
They could just make them VAT able. No need for special taxes.
Possibly, although (a) VAT applies to some naughties like crisps already, and in any case (b) any expansion of scope - let alone the introduction of a higher rate on energy dense foods - would violate the Labour pledge not to raise VAT.
OTOH they've not said anything about not introducing a clone of VAT that's not actually called VAT, applicable to cake, high calorie ready meals and whatever else. They could call it Save the NHS from Fatties Tax, hypothecate it for building new hospitals, paying local councils not to close their leisure centres or whatever, and claim it's entirely novel.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
So what does that tell you?
It tells me that you are trying to compensate for something.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
You would do better to rage against the Conservatives politicians who have let you, and the country, down.
And then consider how the next generation of Conservative politicians can be stopped from behaving as the current lot have done.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Have you been hacked by Leon?
Leon has more class than this unedifying display.
He really doesn't. For all his fury and condescension, I've never heard a single racist word from Casino. Give me anger over evil any day.
Personally I can’t see how anyone can vote Tory after the past five years. That photo of HM in mourning while number 10 partied should be enough for any self respecting conservative to sit on their hands.
You'd like a one-party state with zero opposition then? Really?
What when the boot is on the other foot one day and you're wiped out?
Would you welcome that too?
What exactly have the Tories done to earn the right to be the Opposition? Cos that's what you're fighting for. Or should be.
Don't be ridiculous. There's an argument to eject from government.
Not to totally wipe them out.
That's recklessly irresponsible and borderline insane.
Why not? They haven't done anything to deserve being the Opposition.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
Good luck with the bets.
Honestly, take a more philosophical approach.
Politicians aren’t worth that kind of emotion and your opponents aren’t bad people, just people with a different perspective. If we believe the polls, about 30-40% of electorate are going to have a government that represents them for the first time in ages. Not being excluded is a good thing.
Yep. The funny thing will be if any of these people get seriously stung with a tax that had never even entered their heads.
If Labour wants to do any of their pet projects (on top of just day to day managing) they are going to have to introduce some serious tax rises. And with IT, NI and VAT ruled out they will have to go into new areas.
I don't know - how about extending IHT to lifetime gifts with tax payable on the spot. Bank of Mum and Dad wants to fund a house deposit - 20% (or maybe 40%?) tax payable on the spot on the transfer.
When they get clobbered with that they'll think why on earth didn't they vote for the Conservatives offering sod all. Because sod all would have been infinitely preferable.
Labour have painted themselves into a corner on taxation, they have ruled out most of the main options, and fiscal drag is already baked in to the plans. Also it is very unlikely that growth will be as fast or as large as necessary to close the tax gap. So there are likely to be a lot of indirect tax rises, and many of those are going to make a lot of people quite angry I expect.
Reeves could have her very own omnishambles budget.. this very year.
I hope so. Past experience shows that such budgets preface a further 11 or 12 years in power.
Riiiiight. OK mate.
The Omnishambles budget was 12 years ago. You know that right? And the Tories are still in power? Trying to explain anything to you is like trying to explain gravity to a chicken.
The Omnishambles budget may have been 12 years ago, but your understanding of political nuance still seems stuck in the Stone Age.
If trying to explain gravity to a chicken is hard, trying to explain context to you must be like explaining quantum physics to a rock.
If turnout is well below expected levels, what are the consequences?
1. Labour disproportionately loses. There's not that much enthusiasm for Starmer, merely resigned acceptance. 2. GOTV matters. If turnout is low, then ground game is more important, and the ability to get your vote out is more important. 3. Parties with older voters do better - probably a net positive for both Reform and the Conservatives.
Top of the head: I think it means that the Conservatives and Reform outperform, Labour underperforms, and the LDs do well in places where they have lots of tellers and knocker-uppers. It makes the first 40-odd seats easier, but the next 40 much harder.
Of course, the next question is: will this have impacted postal voting? Also, will voter ID laws have a further dampening effect?
In 2001 turnout collapsed from 71% to 59% and the seats totals for the parties hardly changed at all.
That's because times were benign then and people were generally content.
I remember the tone of society being pretty despondent at the time, more so than now.
If the fantasy taxes that this Labour government are likely to impose on this board ever came to pass, then the entire national debt would be paid off in a single year. Then there'd be a proper tax cutting budget in Labour's second year.
If only that were the case - you would have to raise close to 40k from every man woman and child
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Have you been hacked by Leon?
He's voting Labour. Another example of the crazy maze we're in.
Give me one good reason to vote Conservative, when the Conservatives have raised immigration to its highest levels in our history - and it really IS on a truly insane scale, 1 in 30 people in Britain arrived in the last 3 years
Also, we have the highest tax burden since WW2. And the tories have done nothing to reverse Woke. And they have deported maybe 8 people to Rwanda and still the boats come. And then there's all the corruption and lies and venality and Truss and sewage and full-up-prisons and the very very very real decay I can see all around my own country, such that it makes me urgently want to emigrate? Indeed, such that I have already basically emigrated
Why in the name of Holy Fuck should I give my vote to a party that has done all that and failed to do so much more?
The Tories have screwed up on a Wagnerian scale and they deserve to die as a punishment. Moreover, their death is the only way I can see for a proper, serious rightwing party to emerge from the ruins. They are now simply blocking the road and they need to be swept into oblivion
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
The problem with this is assuming that Labour will do any better, or have a plan.
The Conservatives are awful. Genuinely, awful. The question is do Labour have a plan for better, or is it more managed decline?
This Conservative government is the worst in my lifetime. Yet the election campaign has not convinced me that Labour have a plan for the economy or will be any better.
I remember the sense of optimism in 1997 - "things can only get better". But people aren't voting Labour for that reason in 2024, they're voting Labour because the Conservatives have done so badly, they don't believe things can get any worse.
That's perhaps fair to think that - no one could argue Labour's got a comprehensive map out of the woods, though I'd argue it's fairly clear what the broader shape of Labour's plan is.
Raise some revenue with tweaks to tax to alleviate immediate crises that are in their in-tray while betting in the longer term that significant planning reform, easing trade friction with the EU/other states, the alleviation of said crises, moving forward with infrastructure projects, and especially ones that can secure private investment, will mean they overshoot current growth projections. That then gives them the headroom to do the bigger things they'd like at the end of a first or in a second term. In the meantime, sweat the small stuff that makes people's everyday lives a bit easier.
Easier said than done of course and could botch it or get stuck, but it's a plan. Even fixing a few of the messes left them by the Tories might mean things feel a bit better by 2029.
It's also worth remembering that in 1997 Labour stuck as rigidly to the Tories' spending plans. The economic climate was just much more benign, which was part of the optimism. But they really didn't come in promising the world, rather let the booming economy do its work and make people feel more prosperous, and then from a solid fiscal position started to direct the proceeds towards higher spending on public services. You could say there are similarities - with the differences the less benign backdrop and more interventionist state role in Starmer's pitch now.
If Starmer had come out with a manifesto saying he was going to chuck money at stuff or have big giveaways he wouldn't be believed. As Corbyn wasn't and to a lesser extent some of Sunak's mooted giveaways now aren't.
It's not the stuff of inspirational posters, but if it even half works out then Britain will feel a bit better - which is I think all people ask right now.
Casino, if the Tories lose, focus on the leadership election. I still remember where I was when EdM won, thinking “bugger there goes 2015.” You need to avoid Braverman.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
You would do better to rage against the Conservatives politicians who have let you, and the country, down.
And then consider how the next generation of Conservative politicians can be stopped from behaving as the current lot have done.
I've done very well under the Conservatives but, again, scrutinise the challenger.
We will lose this time and there's been an abject failure of the democratic process to put the alternative administration and their plans under the microscope.
I just found a pheasant in the freezer that I had forgotten about.
So I'm having pheasant, a decent wine, and maybe an English Sparklng with cheese later, with which I will toast the first post-Election Shadow Cabinet meeting of generation Sunak and the Shysters.
"What's that smell, Rishi?" "We're in a cesspit; the voters shat us down the toilet of history."
Tomorrow I might even offer a couple of hours to Ashfield Labour GOTV; it is touch and go on the markets for this seat.
Yep. The funny thing will be if any of these people get seriously stung with a tax that had never even entered their heads.
If Labour wants to do any of their pet projects (on top of just day to day managing) they are going to have to introduce some serious tax rises. And with IT, NI and VAT ruled out they will have to go into new areas.
I don't know - how about extending IHT to lifetime gifts with tax payable on the spot. Bank of Mum and Dad wants to fund a house deposit - 20% (or maybe 40%?) tax payable on the spot on the transfer.
When they get clobbered with that they'll think why on earth didn't they vote for the Conservatives offering sod all. Because sod all would have been infinitely preferable.
Labour have painted themselves into a corner on taxation, they have ruled out most of the main options, and fiscal drag is already baked in to the plans. Also it is very unlikely that growth will be as fast or as large as necessary to close the tax gap. So there are likely to be a lot of indirect tax rises, and many of those are going to make a lot of people quite angry I expect.
Reeves could have her very own omnishambles budget.. this very year.
I hope so. Past experience shows that such budgets preface a further 11 or 12 years in power.
Riiiiight. OK mate.
The Omnishambles budget was 12 years ago. You know that right? And the Tories are still in power? Trying to explain anything to you is like trying to explain gravity to a chicken.
The Omnishambles budget may have been 12 years ago, but your understanding of political nuance still seems stuck in the Stone Age.
If trying to explain gravity to a chicken is hard, trying to explain context to you must be like explaining quantum physics to a rock.
You have literally no sense of humour or irony, you joyless muppet. I've seen spreadsheets with more charisma. Seriously, you could suck the fun out of a comedy club and turn it into a tax seminar. When it comes to irony, you're about as sharp as a marble. Go and find a sense of humour before I have to explain sarcasm to you with a PowerPoint presentation
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
If by some fluke the Conservatives got a majority tomorrow, then by Monday they'd be back at the in-fighting and where would that get us?
Don't be silly. Labour are going to get a massive majority.
This is now about whether you want to live in a one-party state for the next 5 years, or not.
'One-party state' Lol.
You have some good arguments but then you undermine them by making silly comments like that.
Nazi Germany was a one-party state; the Soviet Union was a one-party state; Franco's Spain was a one-party state.
Britain after this election will continue to be a multi-party state whatever the results.
We know SKS hates opposition and freezes out those who cross him/don't back him. We know he wants to abolish the Lords. We know he hates internal opposition. We know he'd love to wipe out the Tories.
Yes, he wants a one-party state.
You get to decide whether to give him a blank cheque or not.
The blank cheque the Tories got in 2019... how did that go again?
It was spent paying for Covid and the war in Ukraine.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
The problem with this is assuming that Labour will do any better, or have a plan.
The Conservatives are awful. Genuinely, awful. The question is do Labour have a plan for better, or is it more managed decline?
This Conservative government is the worst in my lifetime. Yet the election campaign has not convinced me that Labour have a plan for the economy or will be any better.
I remember the sense of optimism in 1997 - "things can only get better". But people aren't voting Labour for that reason in 2024, they're voting Labour because the Conservatives have done so badly, they don't believe things can get any worse.
That's perhaps fair to think that - no one could argue Labour's got a comprehensive map out of the woods, though I'd argue it's fairly clear what the broader shape of Labour's plan is.
Raise some revenue with tweaks to tax to alleviate immediate crises that are in their in-tray while betting in the longer term that significant planning reform, easing trade friction with the EU/other states, the alleviation of said crises, moving forward with infrastructure projects, and especially ones that can secure private investment, will mean they overshoot current growth projections. That then gives them the headroom to do the bigger things they'd like at the end of a first or in a second term. In the meantime, sweat the small stuff that makes people's everyday lives a bit easier.
Easier said than done of course and could botch it or get stuck, but it's a plan. Even fixing a few of the messes left them by the Tories might mean things feel a bit better by 2029.
It's also worth remembering that in 1997 Labour stuck as rigidly to the Tories' spending plans. The economic climate was just much more benign, which was part of the optimism. But they really didn't come in promising the world, rather let the booming economy do its work and make people feel more prosperous, and then from a solid fiscal position started to direct the proceeds towards higher spending on public services. You could say there are similarities - with the differences the less benign backdrop and more interventionist state role in Starmer's pitch now.
If Starmer had come out with a manifesto saying he was going to chuck money at stuff or have big giveaways he wouldn't be believed. As Corbyn wasn't and to a lesser extent some of Sunak's mooted giveaways now aren't.
It's not the stuff of inspirational posters, but if it even half works out then Britain will feel a bit better - which is I think all people ask right now.
That's fair.
It's also the equivalent of playing a hand of five card stud and when the dealer asks you how many cards you'd like to change, you ask for four.
Everyone knows we have a bad hand right now, there's no guarantee the cards we're dealt next will be any better, or any worse.
As I say, that's Labour in 2024. It's a long way from optimistic belief that 'things can only get better' that carried Labour to victory in 1997.
And if things don't get better, the electorate will be asking for a whole new deck in 2029.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
Good luck with the bets.
Honestly, take a more philosophical approach.
Politicians aren’t worth that kind of emotion and your opponents aren’t bad people, just people with a different perspective. If we believe the polls, about 30-40% of electorate are going to have a government that represents them for the first time in ages. Not being excluded is a good thing.
Thanks. I've said before I hope Labour deliver for their base, for the sake of democracy, and I meant it. I am frustrated though by how little scrutiny they've had in this campaign, which I think is bad for a whole host of reasons.
Yes, I get very emotional when I feel people who were on my side, or who I thought were on my side, desert. I have a strong brand loyalty, maybe even tribal loyalty, to the Conservatives. And it runs in my family too.
It feels like a betrayal, and I don't handle that well :-(
In 24 hours time we'll all have a much better idea of whether the more extreme MRPs are right or not, unless there is a massive exit poll failure, of course..
On pensions I do think they should be subject to IHT rules if there is money left when a person dies. It just seems fair . I hate too much tax but if that is used to bring down other taxes I would be suportive . Given my eclectic career I have all sorts of pensions including defined benefit civil service one SIPP (biggest) Employer defined contribution one and a weird hybrid of a defined contribution and hybrid one (that is what you get for working for the Church of England who always do things different to anybody else!)
I just found a pheasant in the freezer that I had forgotten about.
So I'm having pheasant, a decent wine, and maybe an English Sparklng with cheese later, with which I will toast the first post-Election Ahadow Cabinet meeting of generation Sunak and the Shysters.
"What's that smell, Rishi?" "We're in a cesspit; the voters shat us down the toilet of history."
It's looking like venison chilli leftovers tomorrow, although I might break my one-takeaway-a-week rule and get election pizza.
Good grief - what will it be like in here tomorrow night at 10:01pm?
Pretty quiet, as everyone will be knackered.
Nah, we mostly armchair warriors here. My own days of starting with the 5am early morning delivery and then knocking myself out with a solid fifteen hours of delivery and door knocking with only spells of telling for a break are behind me now.
By 10pm Sean will be wasted as usual, Rochdale will be knackered and the rest of us will be fresh and raring to go…
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
Hey. Look after you and yours. You're going to lose big time. But that doesn't reflect on you. Tides come in and out. We don't like it but they do. This is our time. We've lost a lot. It's your turn now. Let us enjoy our moment please ? Time to shift mode. It's our job to run the country not yours*. So we need a mindset change. Genuine best wishes to you and your daughter. The Sun will rise and set. And the Earth will turn.
*Of course WE don't. Maybe it would be better if we did?
For what it's worth, I think some of the Reform share is poll respondent shorthand for "will not vote", that their vote share will be lower than expected, but that it will marginally benefit all other parties. That is, a good number of people saying Reform will stay at home rather than switching to the Tories late on.
But that's just a feeling based on relatively little.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
Hey. Look after you and yours. You're going to lose big time. But that doesn't reflect on you. Tides come in and out. We don't like it but they do. This is our time. We've lost a lot. It's your turn now. Let us enjoy our moment please ? Time to shift mode. It's our job to run the country not yours*. So we need a mindset change. Genuine best wishes to you and your daughter. The Sun will rise and set. And the Earth will turn.
*Of course WE don't. Maybe it would be better if we did?
I would say by far the biggest chance of a major polling error is with the reform share.
Yes. I think it will be more lumpy than even. Overall I am betting on less than 14%, but there are seats where it may well be high enough to win the seat, particularly as a 3 way, and that will be where the value is. For example Melton&Syston or NW Leics both 29 with Bet365.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
True - but as nothing to the utter numpties who’ve been voting Tory fir the last decade.
Except I'm smarter, brighter, more attractive and more successful than you.
So what does that tell you?
It tells me that you are trying to compensate for something.
It’s hard to think of anything more unintelligent than going round boasting about your intelligence? If you conjure up an image of someone who genuinely has a deep, insightful, analytical, high-powered brain, it’s just not something they would ever do. There would be no need.
Yep. The funny thing will be if any of these people get seriously stung with a tax that had never even entered their heads.
If Labour wants to do any of their pet projects (on top of just day to day managing) they are going to have to introduce some serious tax rises. And with IT, NI and VAT ruled out they will have to go into new areas.
I don't know - how about extending IHT to lifetime gifts with tax payable on the spot. Bank of Mum and Dad wants to fund a house deposit - 20% (or maybe 40%?) tax payable on the spot on the transfer.
When they get clobbered with that they'll think why on earth didn't they vote for the Conservatives offering sod all. Because sod all would have been infinitely preferable.
Labour have painted themselves into a corner on taxation, they have ruled out most of the main options, and fiscal drag is already baked in to the plans. Also it is very unlikely that growth will be as fast or as large as necessary to close the tax gap. So there are likely to be a lot of indirect tax rises, and many of those are going to make a lot of people quite angry I expect.
Reeves could have her very own omnishambles budget.. this very year.
I hope so. Past experience shows that such budgets preface a further 11 or 12 years in power.
Riiiiight. OK mate.
The Omnishambles budget was 12 years ago. You know that right? And the Tories are still in power? Trying to explain anything to you is like trying to explain gravity to a chicken.
The Omnishambles budget may have been 12 years ago, but your understanding of political nuance still seems stuck in the Stone Age.
If trying to explain gravity to a chicken is hard, trying to explain context to you must be like explaining quantum physics to a rock.
You have literally no sense of humour or irony, you joyless muppet. I've seen spreadsheets with more charisma. Seriously, you could suck the fun out of a comedy club and turn it into a tax seminar. When it comes to irony, you're about as sharp as a marble. Go and find a sense of humour before I have to explain sarcasm to you with a PowerPoint presentation
It seems like you're really keen to have the last Word.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
I think people are voting Labour because it's buggins turn, i.e. things are bad and have been getting bad the last few years. So let's kick the lot in power.
But they are voting Labour just to kick the current lot for being shite, without any real hope that Labour will be any better. There has been no optimism in this election campaign. No promises of improvement. Because Labour don't have any answers either.
Given their lack of a coherent plan for economic growth, plus a potential weak spot on immigration, I can see them being as unpopular as the Tories, or even worse, in a couple of years time.
Yes. I see that, but. Not handing contracts to mates. Not bollocking on about trivial culture war shite of no importance but to a handful. Accepting and fessing up that things aren't Panglossian joy for everybody. Nor trumpeting Brexit as a magic lamp solution to all our ills. Not changing PM and key ministers as often as I change my undercrackers. That should count for a fair bit.
I would be surprised if friends of Labour aren't rubbing their hands together at the prospect of them getting in, and I would be flabbergasted if when it is more difficult to do what they think would be done, they don't bring out all the culture war stuff of their own.
I live in hope but to imagine one set of politicians to be better than the other lot seems to defy historical precedence.
I have been on here for years, several elections worth, but we rarely get the sort of pre-election meltdown that is on display tonight. It usually happens on Friday morning...
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
You would do better to rage against the Conservatives politicians who have let you, and the country, down.
And then consider how the next generation of Conservative politicians can be stopped from behaving as the current lot have done.
Rather than raging against people intending to vote Labour - a shrinking constituency across the country at present - the more pressing concern for Casino is how to ensure that his party doesn't sell itself to Farage. Many of the party's MPs are desperate to do so, seeing in that act their future renaissance, while the polling of the membership suggests they are even more eager to have Farage as their figurehead.
Given all the things that have happened during the 2019-24 it would be strange were the Tories not to receive a pasting at this election. One of the deciding factors for the future course of British politics is not so much the scale of the Tory defeat, but whether they react to that defeat by embracing Farage.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Have you been hacked by Leon?
He's voting Labour. Another example of the crazy maze we're in.
Give me one good reason to vote Conservative, when the Conservatives have raised immigration to its highest levels in our history - and it really IS on a truly insane scale, 1 in 30 people in Britain arrived in the last 3 years
Also, we have the highest tax burden since WW2. And the tories have done nothing to reverse Woke. And they have deported maybe 8 people to Rwanda and still the boats come. And then there's all the corruption and lies and venality and Truss and sewage and full-up-prisons and the very very very real decay I can see all around my own country, such that it makes me urgently want to emigrate? Indeed, such that I have already basically emigrated
Why in the name of Holy Fuck should I give my vote to a party that has done all that and failed to do so much more?
The Tories have screwed up on a Wagnerian scale and they deserve to die as a punishment. Moreover, their death is the only way I can see for a proper, serious rightwing party to emerge from the ruins. They are now simply blocking the road and they need to be swept into oblivion
I listed that out three weeks ago. Other people seem to be able to scan and find my posts in about 30 seconds. But unfortunately, I don't know how to do it other than trying to manually fish through the last 300 posts.
And I'm too tired to do it again tonight, sorry, and you wouldn't listen to me anyway.
You don't mean it literally, just rhetorically, and if Reform is the alternative to Labour then God help us.
If the fantasy taxes that this Labour government are likely to impose on this board ever came to pass, then the entire national debt would be paid off in a single year. Then there'd be a proper tax cutting budget in Labour's second year.
If only that were the case - you would have to raise close to 40k from every man woman and child
That is pretty much the sum of the amounts various posters seem to think is "probable".
Given that he's already 61, this seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw. Renegotiation would take years and it has a vital necessary precondition: a sustained and substantial majority (minimum two-thirds IMHO) of public opinion committed to going back in. The EU member states are not going to want to go through Brexit twice: they need confidence that we won't turn up, stay for a few years being annoying, and then flounce a second time.
Rebuilding sufficient trust to go back in and convincing most of the population to be positive about the project is the work of decades, not months.
Indeed. It also requires unanimous consent from EU member states, and lots of them would want to extract a high price, from the UK or Brussels or both. It would be horrifically painful and even at the end of it, the UK would be risking a last-minute veto from some stroppy member
Starmer is pragmatically correct, it is never going to happen, not in his lifetime or anyone's. It's done. But that doesn't mean we won't come to better arrangements vis a vis mobility and trade, there will be constant tweaks as there are between, say, Switzerland and the EU
And, of course, all this will be rendered meaningless anyway by the various technological changes coming down the line, which will make Brexit seem like a quaint, trivial skirmish compared to a global war
The internal EU politics - especially about subsidies/budgets - strongly suggests to me that, if asked, the EU would say “join the queue to join on the standard terms”.
Is there a queue to join the EU? Who is in that queue?
I just found a pheasant in the freezer that I had forgotten about.
So I'm having pheasant, a decent wine, and maybe an English Sparklng with cheese later, with which I will toast the first post-Election Shadow Cabinet meeting of generation Sunak and the Shysters.
"What's that smell, Rishi?" "We're in a cesspit; the voters shat us down the toilet of history."
Tomorrow I might even offer a couple of hours to Ashfield Labour GOTV; it is touch and go on the markets for this seat.
I just found a pheasant in the freezer that I had forgotten about is close to peak PB.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
If by some fluke the Conservatives got a majority tomorrow, then by Monday they'd be back at the in-fighting and where would that get us?
Don't be silly. Labour are going to get a massive majority.
This is now about whether you want to live in a one-party state for the next 5 years, or not.
I’ve been living in a one party state for the last 5 years, one party that pulls in 5 different directions. It’s been an utter fiasco.
I’m voting LibDem but looking forward to SKS having a decent majority. I’d like to hope he’ll do something positive with it but that may be too much to expect.
There we have it: whatboutism followed by a lot of projection and "hope".
Exactly what I'm talking about.
Whataboutism? Your party gave us May, Johnson and Truss in short order. None of whom were up to the job. I shall raise a glass of my best Malbec tomorrow as I watch your party take the beating it so richly deserves.
Starmer offers a degree of hope. Your lot offer nothing, zero, zilch. The square root of fuck all. Just endless culture war and performance politics aimed at the old and ignorant.
When you bring people like Rory Stewart back into the party I might start watching again.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
Hey. Look after you and yours. You're going to lose big time. But that doesn't reflect on you. Tides come in and out. We don't like it but they do. This is our time. We've lost a lot. It's your turn now. Let us enjoy our moment please ? Time to shift mode. It's our job to run the country not yours*. So we need a mindset change. Genuine best wishes to you and your daughter. The Sun will rise and set. And the Earth will turn.
*Of course WE don't. Maybe it would be better if we did?
Thanks.
The Tory Party is just the democratic expression of a set of people in the country - of their aspirations, views, beliefs, and interests. When it fails to serve those people but thinks instead that it can march them into the voting booths 'for fear of worse', they are obviously going to find an alternative.
@Pulpstar - Thanks for your spreadsheet with (hopefully!) the live results from Democracy Club. I've linked my own spreadsheet to it for use in keeping track of the cricket grounds and a few other things that I will keep track of.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
No, it's irrational.
People voting Labour are idiots. End of.
Go to bed Casino, you're being an arse.
No, the idiots voting Labour are being an arse and the Herd going around liking their rants.
Take a step back. Prepare for a long haul and ask yourself what went wrong and what you need to do to be better. Never blame the voters.
The voters don't even know what they're voting for - I'm just trying to get them to wake up to it before it's too late.
They aren't listening. And I get silly patronising rants in response.
So I will be silly and patronising back.
Well. I care about you. Take it easy. You will no doubt have happy days soon enough. Let others enjoy their moment if it comes. Celebrate the joy of democracy.
No, I will rant, scream and rage against the dying of the light over the next 36 hours if I need to - it's a kind of therapy for me and since no-one has listened to a word I've said over recent weeks anyway it's not going to cost any votes either.
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
You would do better to rage against the Conservatives politicians who have let you, and the country, down.
And then consider how the next generation of Conservative politicians can be stopped from behaving as the current lot have done.
I've done very well under the Conservatives but, again, scrutinise the challenger.
We will lose this time and there's been an abject failure of the democratic process to put the alternative administration and their plans under the microscope.
Question - and please don't jump down my throat for asking - but is it just possible that you might fail to appreciate how eager so many people are just to be rid of the Government because they have NOT done well under the Conservatives?
This Government has delivered primarily for wealthy, home owning pensioners. Take the total percentage of home owning pensioners in the electorate, and subtract the total percentage of said pensioners who have been let down by the NHS (forced to wait for ages in pain for treatment, or pay through the nose to go private,) and you'll probably arrive at a value not a million miles away from the Conservative vote share in this election. Your party has let down just about everyone else.
This country is run down, tatty, and most of the population under 65 is worse off now than when your favoured party entered office (a product of stagnating wages and the rising cost of just about everything, but especially the disastrous inflation in the price of housing.) Their tenure has been an undoubted failure. Why expect the electorate to vote for more of the same?
Personally I can’t see how anyone can vote Tory after the past five years. That photo of HM in mourning while number 10 partied should be enough for any self respecting conservative to sit on their hands.
You'd like a one-party state with zero opposition then? Really?
What when the boot is on the other foot one day and you're wiped out?
Would you welcome that too?
What exactly have the Tories done to earn the right to be the Opposition? Cos that's what you're fighting for. Or should be.
Don't be ridiculous. There's an argument to eject from government.
Not to totally wipe them out.
That's recklessly irresponsible and borderline insane.
I agree with you that taxes will probably be slightly higher under Labour than they would have been under the Conservatives. Although several Conservative policies have increased taxes relative to income, notably pension triple lock and Brexit.
I also agree one dominating party like we are likely to see under Labour is bad for democracy and governance.
Can anyone explain exactly why Pensions are not subject to Inheritance Tax (other than obviously to spouse).
Seems to me that every penny should be subject to it. The purpose of tax free pension contributions is to fund your old age and stop you being dependent on the state. Not provide a bung to Tarquin and Melinda when you snuff it.
I honestly thought that when the Pensioner and spouse died that was it and the pension was no more. I assumed that was how pension companies actually made money. The idea that pensions could be inherited down the generations is a new one to me.
In short: it's complicated. But in general:
- defined benefit pensions are *not* inherited - with defined contribution, it's more complicated. If (as most people do), the pool is converted to an annuity, then that is not inherited either. And yes, Richard, that is exactly how pension companies make their money. - if, on the other hand, the pension pot is not converted to an annuity and is instead drawn down in one way or another, then yes it is an inheritable asset.
Are you sure most people buy an annuity? The returns are derisory, so they must be taking advice from the vendors.
I will be honest. I did have a slight wobble during the campaign.
I have been a Tory->Labour switcher since 2021. There are a myriad of reasons why I’ve deserted the Tories too extensive to really go into here.
My hope for a Labour government - which I still hope for - is it has the guts to really transform our economy and society, which really isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I am not an ideologue and although I have a wariness about the role the state plays, at times when the country is on the backfoot I believe proportionate and measured intervention is helpful. I want Labour to come up with answers for the problems we face. I want them to succeed, and I want them to be bold.
Hence the wobble. The ming vase strategy has not really enamoured me to them because I want to know the basic contours of a Labour government, and what it will do in the next 5 years. And I don’t feel this campaign has yielded any answers. And I will admit to being disappointed. I expected a little more - not a lot (I know how politics works) - but a bit more meat on the bones.
Anyway I’ve reconciled myself to everything and decided that I have to just take the punt. The only other thing I could really have done is spoiled my ballot paper (sorry LDs, you’re not really for me). I couldn’t vote Tory or Farage (shudder). So down to the polls I go tomorrow to give them their (likely) whacking great majority and I just hope they use it to really get some good and competent stuff done.
I completely get that and it seems an entirely reasonable position to me. I will vote Tory for tactical anti-SNP reasons but I don't think I have been so tempted to vote Labour in my adult life. Its not that they are offering much, its just the Tories are offering the square root of sod all.
Labour are offering socialism.
People are voting for them out of sheer anger at the Conservatives and a willingness to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's totally emotional and totally irrational. Everyone has their pet reasons (and they're mostly wholly contradictory) but the most disappointed (and angry) in future months will be those "one nation" Tories who think they voted for one of their own.
They're going to be sorely disappointed but it's no use me making any argument beforehand because I simply won't be listened to. That's fair enough but they've got to live with that decision, not me.
I'll be voting Conservative tomorrow.
It's the opposite of irrational. The Tories' record is so bad - quite possibly the worst in modern history - and for many people they have been pursuing policies whose results seem actively malicious towards them. They are utterly discredited in many eyes that means people want a different approach - much as that may pain you that your team and its ideas have completely failed people.
The entirely irrational thing would be voting Conservative if you feel failed by the government. Einstein and the definition of insanity and all that.
If you are around 35 and a middle earning professional (a group who used to be key swing voters), so have lived under the Tories all your adult life, you have found it more difficult to buy your own home, and earn less in real terms than your 2010 doppelganger did. Your local amenities are worse. You wait longer for any NHS treatment and are unlikely to be able to find an NHS dentist. Oh and if you wanted to get away, you now can't live, work or study easily in loads of places you could in 2010.
We could go on listing these things that have got worse - but on top of this the Tories give every impression that they don't like you, and don't value or even consider your views. Britain feels genuinely broken and what's worse you don't think the Conservatives have a plan to fix it and help you.
So of course it's entirely rational to vote Labour. Warnings about 'socialism' aren't scary because you haven't had the kind of tax cuts that might make you feel better off, nor has the economy grown at any reasonable clip over the past 14 years.
You see a crumbling, meaner, less effective state, low growth, and some of the downright toxicity that emanates from the Tory benches and of course you are more receptive to Labour's arguments about needing to take on a more activist role in fixing things, and raising taxes high earners or those with wealth tend to pay to do so.
You are fully aware that you don't agree with Labour on everything, and know that there might be a time when you're on the wrong end of a decision they make. But frankly, you decide they can't be worse than the other lot and they at least give the impression they like people like me and look like they listen now and again. It's not a difficult rational choice to make.
So in this case you do sound a bit like a Corbynite blaming the electorate for not seeing the Wonders of St. Jeremy, when of course for many rejecting him was also for entirely rational reasons based on the evidence of their eyes. So it is now with the Conservatives. As it was for Labour, the answer is to listen to people and why they are upset with you and prefer the other lot, not to think they are "irrational" for doing so.
The problem with this is assuming that Labour will do any better, or have a plan.
The Conservatives are awful. Genuinely, awful. The question is do Labour have a plan for better, or is it more managed decline?
This Conservative government is the worst in my lifetime. Yet the election campaign has not convinced me that Labour have a plan for the economy or will be any better.
I remember the sense of optimism in 1997 - "things can only get better". But people aren't voting Labour for that reason in 2024, they're voting Labour because the Conservatives have done so badly, they don't believe things can get any worse.
That's perhaps fair to think that - no one could argue Labour's got a comprehensive map out of the woods, though I'd argue it's fairly clear what the broader shape of Labour's plan is.
Raise some revenue with tweaks to tax to alleviate immediate crises that are in their in-tray while betting in the longer term that significant planning reform, easing trade friction with the EU/other states, the alleviation of said crises, moving forward with infrastructure projects, and especially ones that can secure private investment, will mean they overshoot current growth projections. That then gives them the headroom to do the bigger things they'd like at the end of a first or in a second term. In the meantime, sweat the small stuff that makes people's everyday lives a bit easier.
Easier said than done of course and could botch it or get stuck, but it's a plan. Even fixing a few of the messes left them by the Tories might mean things feel a bit better by 2029.
It's also worth remembering that in 1997 Labour stuck as rigidly to the Tories' spending plans. The economic climate was just much more benign, which was part of the optimism. But they really didn't come in promising the world, rather let the booming economy do its work and make people feel more prosperous, and then from a solid fiscal position started to direct the proceeds towards higher spending on public services. You could say there are similarities - with the differences the less benign backdrop and more interventionist state role in Starmer's pitch now.
If Starmer had come out with a manifesto saying he was going to chuck money at stuff or have big giveaways he wouldn't be believed. As Corbyn wasn't and to a lesser extent some of Sunak's mooted giveaways now aren't.
It's not the stuff of inspirational posters, but if it even half works out then Britain will feel a bit better - which is I think all people ask right now.
That's fair.
It's also the equivalent of playing a hand of five card stud and when the dealer asks you how many cards you'd like to change, you ask for four.
Everyone knows we have a bad hand right now, there's no guarantee the cards we're dealt next will be any better, or any worse.
As I say, that's Labour in 2024. It's a long way from optimistic belief that 'things can only get better' that carried Labour to victory in 1997.
And if things don't get better, the electorate will be asking for a whole new deck in 2029.
Oh of course. I just think the most likely scenario (absent major global crises of some sort that has a major impact on Britain - and that's not as unlikely as we'd like) is they grasp the low hanging fruit and make people feel a little bit better, while being a bit underwhelming and disappointing if you are expecting them to be immediately transformative. A lot depends on if they get lucky on/can manufacture growth. But even if don't live up to that, if there's enough small improvements on each issue/policy area it'll all add up.
As I say, the optimism felt in 97 wasn't completely to do with what Labour were promising - which was fairly underwhelming of and in itself, but the backdrop and the feeling of a country that was becoming more prosperous and relevant again. 'Cool Britannia', Euro 96 and all that. We're just in different times and fairly ground down by the last 16 years if you count the crash. Labour can't immediately change that mood.
Do you think Donald Trump left the country better or worse than when he took office?
Better 48% Worse 47% ——— Do you think Joe Biden has made the country better or worse since taking office?
Better 36% Worse 57%
That’s extraordinary. Seriously half of the USA population are insane .
It is their Brexit moment where they inflict totally unnecessary self-harm on themselves and then spend years regretting it.
Spice will be added because the Yanks are generally armed to the teeth (there being more guns than people in the US)
Whatever happens, we have got The Gatling gun, and they have not
The arms borne by the people do not include automatic rifles let alone military drones and helicopter gunships. A shooting civil war against the Pentagon is not on the cards.
I'm not sure on that. A shooting war not involving the Pentagon is possible, as is Mr Trump trying to use the armed forces for his own purposes.
AIUI bump stocks - as used in the 2017 Las Vegas slaughter - have just been made legal again. One 64 year old bloke fired 1000+ rounds in 10 minutes, killing 61 and injuring 400+ people directly. He also had 20kg of explosive.*
And there are places where they have all kinds of major weapons around. Plus the police are militarised with cast off army stock.
* On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people[a] and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. ... Paddock was found to have fired a total of 1,058 rounds from fifteen of the firearms: 1,049 from twelve AR-15-style rifles, eight from two AR-10-style rifles, and the round used to kill himself from the Smith & Wesson revolver.
I'd recommend the documentary about that. 11 minutes. On IPlayer I think.
I cannot watch that documentary. I have friends who were in that crowd - some of whom own guns. That day they realized all the stuff about 'good guys with guns' stopping 'bad guys with guns' is utter garbage.
Solar is only going to get cheaper, but the US has some tough decisions coming up very soon on whether to continue to press for growing its domestic manufacturing - largely with Chinese manufacturers - or just import everything.
Good grief - what will it be like in here tomorrow night at 10:01pm?
I am planning a tactical nap after work, with the alarm set for 2145.
Cheese, biscuits and some plonk to keep me going. Brandy for medicinal purposes in reserve.
I intend to watch the exit poll, a bit of the chit chat, and then go to bed (probably before the first result.) I've sufficient confidence in the god Curtice that I'll feel that I know the approximate outcome by 10:01pm. One can fill in the details in the morning.
Comments
Primal scream therapy. Argh.
It's hard when people you feel are on your side and your political allies desert you. Feels like a betrayal. And I'm a very loyal person- it hurts.
Probably will throw up tomorrow night. Maybe some tears. Might even go into the streets.
Then a glass of water, get through work on Friday- try to avoid the TV - and then spend the weekend with the family ignoring politics.
Just hope a win a few bets too.
So what does that tell you?
Deal with it.
Vom.
Your beef isn’t with the minority of voters who’ll vote Labour.
Or if you had any intellectual honesty it wouldn’t be.
Labour has specifically ruled out raising the big four (income tax, national insurance, corporation tax, and VAT) that accounts for two thirds of all receipts. So all the money needed to close the spending gap will have to come from the remaining third. Short of a real economic miracle there are going to have to be a lot of tax and duty rises in all sorts of areas. Many of those will likely be very unpopular.
It wouldn't make much difference who wins tomorrow, big rises in taxation are almost certain.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19Rj9mRpDoxn5OQ3h5wmdydO7aO3FGXn-5uJ__LzYUHA/edit?usp=sharing
Not handing contracts to mates. Not bollocking on about trivial culture war shite of no importance but to a handful. Accepting and fessing up that things aren't Panglossian joy for everybody. Nor trumpeting Brexit as a magic
lamp solution to all our ills. Not changing PM and key ministers as often as I change my undercrackers.
That should count for a fair bit.
OTOH they've not said anything about not introducing a clone of VAT that's not actually called VAT, applicable to cake, high calorie ready meals and whatever else. They could call it Save the NHS from Fatties Tax, hypothecate it for building new hospitals, paying local councils not to close their leisure centres or whatever, and claim it's entirely novel.
And then consider how the next generation of Conservative politicians can be stopped from behaving as the current lot have done.
They haven't done anything to deserve being the Opposition.
Honestly, take a more philosophical approach.
Politicians aren’t worth that kind of emotion and your opponents aren’t bad people, just people with a different perspective. If we believe the polls, about 30-40% of electorate are going to have a government that represents them for the first time in ages. Not being excluded is a good thing.
If trying to explain gravity to a chicken is hard, trying to explain context to you must be like explaining quantum physics to a rock.
Leaked messages show Tory activists are in meltdown over Reform surge!
One activist told GB News: "I've canvassed and I never had anything like it as a Tory, Reform are sweeping us away."
"The enthusiasm is incredible, and the hatred of my party is visceral."
Wonderful
9:47 PM · Jul 3, 2024
·
4,131
Views
https://x.com/addicted2newz/status/1808603404064764021
Also, we have the highest tax burden since WW2. And the tories have done nothing to reverse Woke. And they have deported maybe 8 people to Rwanda and still the boats come. And then there's all the corruption and lies and venality and Truss and sewage and full-up-prisons and the very very very real decay I can see all around my own country, such that it makes me urgently want to emigrate? Indeed, such that I have already basically emigrated
Why in the name of Holy Fuck should I give my vote to a party that has done all that and failed to do so much more?
The Tories have screwed up on a Wagnerian scale and they deserve to die as a punishment. Moreover, their death is the only way I can see for a proper, serious rightwing party to emerge from the ruins. They are now simply blocking the road and they need to be swept into oblivion
Raise some revenue with tweaks to tax to alleviate immediate crises that are in their in-tray while betting in the longer term that significant planning reform, easing trade friction with the EU/other states, the alleviation of said crises, moving forward with infrastructure projects, and especially ones that can secure private investment, will mean they overshoot current growth projections. That then gives them the headroom to do the bigger things they'd like at the end of a first or in a second term. In the meantime, sweat the small stuff that makes people's everyday lives a bit easier.
Easier said than done of course and could botch it or get stuck, but it's a plan. Even fixing a few of the messes left them by the Tories might mean things feel a bit better by 2029.
It's also worth remembering that in 1997 Labour stuck as rigidly to the Tories' spending plans. The economic climate was just much more benign, which was part of the optimism. But they really didn't come in promising the world, rather let the booming economy do its work and make people feel more prosperous, and then from a solid fiscal position started to direct the proceeds towards higher spending on public services. You could say there are similarities - with the differences the less benign backdrop and more interventionist state role in Starmer's pitch now.
If Starmer had come out with a manifesto saying he was going to chuck money at stuff or have big giveaways he wouldn't be believed. As Corbyn wasn't and to a lesser extent some of Sunak's mooted giveaways now aren't.
It's not the stuff of inspirational posters, but if it even half works out then Britain will feel a bit better - which is I think all people ask right now.
We will lose this time and there's been an abject failure of the democratic process to put the alternative administration and their plans under the microscope.
I just found a pheasant in the freezer that I had forgotten about.
So I'm having pheasant, a decent wine, and maybe an English Sparklng with cheese later, with which I will toast the first post-Election Shadow Cabinet meeting of generation Sunak and the Shysters.
"What's that smell, Rishi?"
"We're in a cesspit; the voters shat us down the toilet of history."
Tomorrow I might even offer a couple of hours to Ashfield Labour GOTV; it is touch and go on the markets for this seat.
It's also the equivalent of playing a hand of five card stud and when the dealer asks you how many cards you'd like to change, you ask for four.
Everyone knows we have a bad hand right now, there's no guarantee the cards we're dealt next will be any better, or any worse.
As I say, that's Labour in 2024. It's a long way from optimistic belief that 'things can only get better' that carried Labour to victory in 1997.
And if things don't get better, the electorate will be asking for a whole new deck in 2029.
Yes, I get very emotional when I feel people who were on my side, or who I thought were on my side, desert. I have a strong brand loyalty, maybe even tribal loyalty, to the Conservatives. And it runs in my family too.
It feels like a betrayal, and I don't handle that well :-(
My final UK-Elect forecast (which I posted on another thread just before this one started) shows Labour 426 seats, Conservative 116, Liberal Democrat 57, SNP 17, Reform UK 8, Plaid Cymru 4, and Green 3, giving an overall Labour majority of 204. It's at https://www.ukelect.co.uk/HTML/forecasts/20240703ForecastUKFinal.html The forecast top three in every constituency can be found here: https://www.ukelect.co.uk/20240703ForecastUKFinal/UKTop3Forecast.csv
In 24 hours time we'll all have a much better idea of whether the more extreme MRPs are right or not, unless there is a massive exit poll failure, of course..
defined benefit civil service one
SIPP (biggest)
Employer defined contribution one
and a weird hybrid of a defined contribution and hybrid one (that is what you get for working for the Church of England who always do things different to anybody else!)
By 10pm Sean will be wasted as usual, Rochdale will be knackered and the rest of us will be fresh and raring to go…
This was 2017 election night.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2017/06/08/remember-how-at-euref-newcastle-and-sunderland-gave-us-the-first-pointers-as-to-what-was-to-come/
Genuine best wishes to you and your daughter. The Sun will rise and set. And the Earth will turn.
*Of course WE don't. Maybe it would be better if we did?
But that's just a feeling based on relatively little.
NEW: Final @RestIsPolitics / JLP voting intention poll, July 2nd - 3rd 2024
*Labour lead at 15 points, Reform recovers to close to previous peak*
Change on weekend in brackets
LAB: 38% (-1)
CON: 23% (-1)
REF: 17% (+1)
LDEM: 13% (+3)
GRN: 5% (-)
jlpartners.co.uk/polling-results
How many of us were here back then.
Reform certainly seem to be holding together far more than I expected this late on.
I live in hope but to imagine one set of politicians to be better than the other lot seems to defy historical precedence.
"Vote Farage get them"
https://x.com/hendopolis/status/1808610332447027385
Given all the things that have happened during the 2019-24 it would be strange were the Tories not to receive a pasting at this election. One of the deciding factors for the future course of British politics is not so much the scale of the Tory defeat, but whether they react to that defeat by embracing Farage.
And I'm too tired to do it again tonight, sorry, and you wouldn't listen to me anyway.
You don't mean it literally, just rhetorically, and if Reform is the alternative to Labour then God help us.
Sweet Betfairing all.
Who is in that queue?
The Thick Of It - Super Gay-Weight Title Fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG_DvlFJ-YQ
Starmer offers a degree of hope. Your lot offer nothing, zero, zilch. The square root of fuck all. Just endless culture war and performance politics aimed at the old and ignorant.
When you bring people like Rory Stewart back into the party I might start watching again.
Cheese, biscuits and some plonk to keep me going. Brandy for medicinal purposes in reserve.
LAB: 443
CON: 88
REF: 8
LDEM: 70
GRN: 3
Another mind-bending prediction which now seems totally normal
"I'm going for Con 380, Lab 190" ,😜
And on UKPR.
Lab 39.1 (36-43)
Con 21.1 (16-25)
Reform 16.6 (15-20)
Lib Dems 10.8 (10-13)
Green 6.5 (4-9)
SNP 2.9 (2-5)
https://x.com/drjennings/status/1808619149129887825?s=46
So final scores for the blocs: LLG 56.4 RefCon 37.7
That’s a 1-2% swing over the course of the campaign from left to right, largely due to the Reform surge. SNP a little up from where they started too.
This Government has delivered primarily for wealthy, home owning pensioners. Take the total percentage of home owning pensioners in the electorate, and subtract the total percentage of said pensioners who have been let down by the NHS (forced to wait for ages in pain for treatment, or pay through the nose to go private,) and you'll probably arrive at a value not a million miles away from the Conservative vote share in this election. Your party has let down just about everyone else.
This country is run down, tatty, and most of the population under 65 is worse off now than when your favoured party entered office (a product of stagnating wages and the rising cost of just about everything, but especially the disastrous inflation in the price of housing.) Their tenure has been an undoubted failure. Why expect the electorate to vote for more of the same?
I also agree one dominating party like we are likely to see under Labour is bad for democracy and governance.
As I say, the optimism felt in 97 wasn't completely to do with what Labour were promising - which was fairly underwhelming of and in itself, but the backdrop and the feeling of a country that was becoming more prosperous and relevant again. 'Cool Britannia', Euro 96 and all that. We're just in different times and fairly ground down by the last 16 years if you count the crash. Labour can't immediately change that mood.
If they’re directionally correct but are underestimating the scale, then Goodwin could end up being vindicated.
So let's say that continues and intensifies in the final 24 hours and it's something like
LAB: 36
CON: 19
REF: 20
LDs: 16
GRN: 4
That would produce:
LAB: 443
CON: 63
REF: 26
LIB: 77
GRN: 3
The SNP get 15 seats with almost any result
Let's go a bit crazier and say the slippage is even bigger
LAB: 35
CON: 18
REF: 21
LDs: 16
GRN: 5
Baxtered:
LAB: 436
CON: 55
REF: 38
LDM: 80
GRN: 3
With an opposition this fragmented, and Reform doing so well. Labour can get an ENORMOUS majority on just a third of the vote
Interesting article:
Assessing the United States’ Solar Power Play
https://www.csis.org/analysis/assessing-united-states-solar-power-play
Solar is only going to get cheaper, but the US has some tough decisions coming up very soon on whether to continue to press for growing its domestic manufacturing - largely with Chinese manufacturers - or just import everything.
Lab 462
Con 71
LD 69
Ref 7
Green 3
SNP 15
PC 3