At the moment I'm thinking the result could be something like this: Lab 40%, Con 25%, Ref 15%, LD 12%, Grn 4%. Not yet convinced of the crossover scenario.
Discounting the LDs as being seen by most of the country as centrist, that essentially means the country is still in two-camps.
I find this fascinating. One of the reasons that the current Tories struggle so much right now is that they see Reform as their own, something to win over and embrace rather than a threat they need to defeat.
Based on the downloadable csv file from your link, RefUK is boycotting Sheffield. No Reform candidate is listed in:-
1 Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney 2 Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven 3 Bristol East 4 Cambridge 5 Cheltenham 6 Chorley 7 Doncaster North 8 Earley and Woodley 9 East Grinstead and Uckfield 10 Epping Forest 11 Hexham 12 Leeds South 13 Maidenhead 14 Mid Dorset and North Poole 15 Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland 16 Oxford East 17 Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough 18 Sheffield Central 19 Sheffield Hallam 20 Sheffield Heeley 21 Sheffield South East 22 West Dorset
1 Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney 2 Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven 3 Bristol East 4 Cambridge 5 Cheltenham 6 Chorley 7 Doncaster North 8 Earley and Woodley 9 East Grinstead and Uckfield 10 Epping Forest 11 Hexham 12 Leeds South 13 Maidenhead 14 Mid Dorset and North Poole 15 Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland 16 Oxford East 17 Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough 18 Sheffield Central 19 Sheffield Hallam 20 Sheffield Heeley 21 Sheffield South East 22 Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge 23 West Dorset
RefUK and the TUV are standing agreed joint candidates in most NI seats. They wanted to bade them as TUV/Reform UK, but couldn’t get the paperwork for that agreed in time.
Thanks. For the record then, the TUV are standing in 14 of Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies, and not these four:-
1 Fermanagh and South Tyrone 2 Foyle 3 North Down 4 Upper Bann
I have always said that Cameron was popped into the Lords and into a senior ministerial post for a reason.
I thought maybe it was to replace Sunak at an earlier stage.
Rumours around tonight that Sunak’s about to fall on his sword.
There are no MPs - only Ministers.
If Sunak does resign, any replacement would have to come from within Ministerial ranks…
The appointment made little sense (other than avoiding a wider reshuffle), but the theory also makes no real sense, since how would doing that help Cameron, Sunak, the Tories, or the Country?
Cameron wouldn't carry on, Sunak is out in the scenario, the party is not likely to see a sudden boost in that scenario, and there's no time for it to benefit the country even if it was thought it might theoretically if he had more time.
So, and I hate to say this, I think Nadine may have this one wrong.
As Cameron is not an MP, he could not be PM after the election.
Basically, the story is... What's the word... Ridiculous
Alec Douglas-Home says Hi.
In 1963 ADH was PM whilst being a peer and then after renouncing his peerages neither a member of either House of Parliament, until he won a by-election 20 days later.
Sir Alec could renounce his hereditary peerage thanks to legislation passed for Tony Benn. Cameron, as a life peer, cannot, although he can give up his right to sit in the Lords.
But an additional problem since 1963, when new leaders and Prime Ministers just emerged, is the Conservative Party's own rulebook.
In practice, we have a Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister already, so Cameron is not even next on the list.
I think the only resignation scenario that works in an election is if he quits as leader but not PM. Quitting as PM would drag the monarch into politics and you simply don’t do that.
I could see a situation where Rishi relinquishes the leadership immediately, someone gets nominated as acting leader for the rest of the campaign with an admission the election is over and to try to maximise the size of the parliamentary party in opposition. It’s risky and a very long shot in my view, far more likely that Rishi stays on in both posts but is essentially sidelined in his own campaign.
Post election I think the Tories will need to completely reinvent themselves. There’s been a grassroots movement to elect the Party Chairman which might gain traction, I think there is a decent case for having an official deputy leader as most other parties have, there might be a case for combining the two roles somehow, but it seems strange that the party doesn’t have an official deputy leader.
Rishi is only going to quit during an election campaign if he has some sort of mental health crisis, and simply cannot continue. In that situation Cabinet would recommend a replacement PM to the King. Notwithstanding that there is a Deputy PM, I would expect that replacement PM to be Cameron, on the basis of being most reassuring generally in what would be a moment of crisis for the country. Also, his appointment wouldn't skew the subsequent contest for leadership of the party.
Indeed, it just highlights what a hell of a mess the Tories are in that they are in the midst of an election campaign with a leader who is a disaster and no means of extricating themselves from it. Also IIRC had the FTPA not been repealed the election would have been in May by default, so the net effect of that change was to gain 2 months in office. Was it really worth it?
I think that, if you weren't planning to hold on until the autumn or the winter, then it would have been much better to have the election in May. At the time I'd wondered whether the Lee Anderson defection to Reform had been timed to disrupt calling the election for May.
So I think it's safe to assume that the original plan was to hang on for longer, but something happened which changed the decision. I think that's the main advantage to a PM of repealing the FTPA, that the PM has the flexibility to react to events to pick a date whenever they want.
I imagine there will be competing stories about what happened that led to the election being held on July 4th. The hypothesis that the King may have been given only a limited period left to live, and so they decided the election had to happen earlier, to avoid the death of a Monarch during an election campaign, is superficially appealing, only because I struggle to think of any other rational explanation.
As you’re our man on the ground, so to speak, with good local knowledge is there any reason for the decline in support for Sinn Fein ?
It's the immigration issue that's completely upended things.
People are seeing their children emigrate because they can't afford housing, and yet the population of the country continues to increase. The government is going to desperate lengths to house asylum seekers (and still failing), and people don't see the same urgency going towards housing their children. You have protests across the country at any site that is suspected of being chosen to house asylum seekers, and people don't see Sinn Fein as speaking up for and articulating their anger on this issue.
I think it's very sad to see people blame asylum seekers for problems that have been created by government incompetence and failure, but the far-right are winning the political argument on this at the moment.
Yup. It’s pretty simple. If the population is increasing at 0.5% a year or whatever, you either increase infrastructure, services and housing at 0.5%+ per year. Or shit happens.
The problem comes with the many who believe that “We can’t and must not do anything”. This is spread across the left and right.
When I lived in Wiltshire, the local LibDems and Greens were *proud* of stopping jobs being created.
RTE have this filler programme called "Reeling in the Years". They pick a year, say 2001, and then they put together 25 minutes of archive footage from the year - twin towers, some sport, release of the iPod, something happening in Northern Ireland, foot and mouth disease, etc.
Anyway, they had a new batch of years recently, and they had one from the late 2000s, maybe 2006, when the INMO had just started counting the number of patients admitted to hospital without a hospital bed - major crisis, indignity of patients being kept on a trolley in a corridor, politicians earnestly promising that the issue would be fixed. And here we are in 2024, the trolley count figures reach new record highs, the politicians mouth the same formula of words, often the same politicians, bearing in mind the last three politicians to be taoiseach have all been previous ministers for health.
There is this pattern, much more in Ireland than in Britain, of emergency measures being introduced to deal with a crisis, and then becoming normalised, with the underlying problem left unaddressed. My wife thinks this is, in part, due to the culture of emigration. A lot of the people not happy with the status quo, and who might have the wherewithal to do something about it, end up putting their energy into leaving the country, instead of fixing it. And so the country is disproportionately inhabited by people who simply put up with things. (Not sure what that says about us, having moved here.)
And now, even those people are running out of patience.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
Dr. Foxy, I agree with a lot of what you wrote regarding the state of finances. But laying it entirely at the feet of the Conservatives is not justified.
Back in the late 1990s, things were very rosy. Labour had a great economic inheritance. The dotcom bubble bursting was not Labour's fault. Running up a deficit in a boom was a choice by Brown, however. The rejigging of financial regulation, also by Brown, acted to make worse the impact of the financial crisis.
Broadly, the Coalition did a good job of handling the effects, though cuts to the legal sector were ill-considered. Then, post-Cameron, the eye was taken off the economy very significantly. The biggest single factor in economic terms was, of course, the pandemic. Any government would, right now, be dealing with economic difficulty. The Conservatives could've handled things better. But even if they'd done so, the costs associated with barely recovering from the worst recession in history and then suffering the first pandemic in a century would pose a huge challenge.
Labour will, very soon, return to power, most likely in a landslide. But unlike 1997 the question will not be "Where shall we spend all this lovely money?" but "How do we handle this economic challenge?"
What I don’t get is how Sunak got this far? How the hell did anyone let him run a bath without the presence of the coastguard? And possibly the fire brigade.
Counting backwards, he got to be PM because Truss and Johnson exploded in office in utterly predictable ways, and none of the alternatives looked better. (Both Mordaunt Badenoch have have moments in the spotlight this week- neither of them were much good.)
He was in pole position because he'd been Chancellor. He got to be Chancellor because he has been willing to throw the Saj under the bus and become Dom's Sub.
He was available to be Chancellor because he had backed both Boris and Brexit before they were cool.
Before that, we're lost in why he was catapulted into a safe seat with no political testing. Because he was wealthy? Because he was Eurosceptic? Because his face fitted?
But like pretty much everyone else associated with the idea of Brexit, he has failed miserably in office. Even Gove is only a partial exception to this. They've all proved to be corrupt or idiotic or both. And whilst an idea isn't responsible for its adherents, that is suggestive.
What I don’t get is how Sunak got this far? How the hell did anyone let him run a bath without the presence of the coastguard? And possibly the fire brigade.
The competition was Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees Mogg.
I think History will possibly be a little kinder to Sunak, than it seems now. The Torys deserve to get routed at the polls, but in my opinion because of the worst two prime ministers in my lifetime, Truss and Johnson. My worry is for the 2029 election, Labour will take the blame for not turning the ship around quick enough, and the alternative will be a far right Tory party under Patel/Farage, and unlike when Labour went far left, and Corbyn rightly so got crucified by the media, the right wing media will say they are the best thing since sliced bread, very worrying, even Tommy two names might join the Tory party
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
I’ll wait and see . But I don’t see why the country should reward the Tories with 5 more years . Can you explain why the Tories should be given that .
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
We'll all find out about the shit sandwich that's in store at their first Budget later this year. People won't enjoy it.
Clearly, no-one wants to hear about that this side of the GE - because every time it's raised we just hear but.. THE TORRIIIIEESSS!!!! - so they will get what they vote for good and hard.
Again, the alternative to tax rises is spending cuts. There are no easy and comfortable choices. If the country were that well off, Sunak would be coasting to victory.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
The Tories have revealed their skill, intelligence and finesse in how they have run this election campaign. It is not unreasonable to assume that behind the scenes they have governed in the same manner. It would explain the dreadful state of the country.
Despite having to deal with this dreadful inheritance, it is possible that any incoming government might surprise on the upside simply by not being utter buffoons.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
The Tories have revealed their skill, intelligence and finesse in how they have run this election campaign. It is not unreasonable to assume that behind the scenes they have governed in the same manner. It would explain the dreadful state of the country.
Despite having to deal with this dreadful inheritance, it is possible that any incoming government might surprise on the upside simply by not being utter buffoons.
That is the only upside I see. A vaguely competent Government may well get the benefit of the doubt for a while longer..
Before that, we're lost in why he was catapulted into a safe seat with no political testing. Because he was wealthy? Because he was Eurosceptic? Because his face fitted?
More baffling is why he wanted to.
Not only is he bad at politics, he doesn't even seem to like it. What was his goal?
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
Considering the near certainty of PM Starmer in a month, capital markets are remarkably unbothered.
They clearly don't consider a Labour government is going to act against their interests.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
The Tories have revealed their skill, intelligence and finesse in how they have run this election campaign. It is not unreasonable to assume that behind the scenes they have governed in the same manner. It would explain the dreadful state of the country.
Despite having to deal with this dreadful inheritance, it is possible that any incoming government might surprise on the upside simply by not being utter buffoons.
That is the only upside I see. A vaguely competent Government may well get the benefit of the doubt for a while longer..
They will need it to sort out the mess. The current Tory administration got about 5-7 years grace, before the events of 2007-2010 lost their political potency.
If they lose, the Tories reputation is going to be manure. The victors write the history books. Expect the first few months of the any incoming government lifting the rock revealing all sorts of problems.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
Can you give any examples of this supposed incoming "eat the rich" cohort? It would be nice to know that this is working knowledge of candidates as opposed to, say, a worn-out cliche.
What I don’t get is how Sunak got this far? How the hell did anyone let him run a bath without the presence of the coastguard? And possibly the fire brigade.
You're forgetting that the clown felt threatened by having sensible, capable people around him and went out looking for the politically lame so he would be surrounded by incompetents who made him look good by comparison.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
We'll all find out about the shit sandwich that's in store at their first Budget later this year. People won't enjoy it.
Clearly, no-one wants to hear about that this side of the GE - because every time it's raised we just hear but.. THE TORRIIIIEESSS!!!! - so they will get what they vote for good and hard.
Again, the alternative to tax rises is spending cuts. There are no easy and comfortable choices. If the country were that well off, Sunak would be coasting to victory.
Are we ruling out economic growth?
Starmer will be a lucky general on this too it seems, landing on the right phase of the economic cycle. I am not sure it is enough though.
Before that, we're lost in why he was catapulted into a safe seat with no political testing. Because he was wealthy? Because he was Eurosceptic? Because his face fitted?
More baffling is why he wanted to.
Not only is he bad at politics, he doesn't even seem to like it. What was his goal?
Succeeding in politics was the only way to do something where he could outdo his wife, who is always going to be much richer than he is.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
Given the massive size of the majority Starmer is likely to get, he won't need to put a lot of effort into keeping the more awkward of his leftward fringe onside in order to get legislation through, though. So if you want the fringe to be sidelined, vote Labour to ensure he has a big majority and not a wafer thin one where he needs every vote :-)
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
Can you give any examples of this supposed incoming "eat the rich" cohort? It would be nice to know that this is working knowledge of candidates as opposed to, say, a worn-out cliche.
I think sorting out candidate selection was an early move by Starmer, so he will have plenty of loyal centrist drones. It seems he was anticipating an election this year, while it has come as a surprise to the Tories.
Nice and early on this beautiful sunny and cloudless morning, the Sunday Rawnsley:
Brexit is the most consequential thing the Conservatives have done since the last election. More, it is the most impactful legacy of their 14-year stretch in power. When the histories are written, every other failure of this Tory era will be a footnote compared with that epic folly.
Given the odds that Labour will form the next government, it would be useful to know how exactly it plans to set about trying to salve the pain inflicted by Brexit. But Sir Keir Starmer, though an ardent Remainer back in the day, is unlikely to say anything more substantial before he’s inside Number 10.
What Labour isn’t interested in, for fear of exposing its shins to a kicking from its enemies on the right, is engaging the electorate in a wider conversation about the tougher decisions that will be necessary to get to a sustainable future [and tackle the climate crisis].
A grown-up conversation about the biggest challenges facing Britain is especially unlikely to happen during a campaign in which Labour sees no incentive to take any chances with its apparently enormous advantage and the Tories are limping so far behind in the polls that they are terrified of shedding what shrivelled support they have left. Although the creaking state of the NHS, schools, courts, prisons and other key elements of the public realm are supposed to be central to this election, we are not going to have a full and frank conversation about how to revive them because this would entail having an adult discourse about taxation.
The debate we deserve is not the puerile one the politicians are having about whose figures are the more fictitious. What we ought to be talking about is how to modernise the tax system to make it more equitable and more helpful to growth. On tax, the discussion we ought to be having is about how to make it simpler, fairer and more efficient. Just as we should be talking about addressing the climate crisis and the best way to shape Britain’s relationship with its continent. Taboo subjects for both the main parties on the campaign trail, these critical debates will be made to wait until we get to the other side of polling day.
It is not just our GE that is happening but also EU elections today
It does seem the EU are looking at an increase in the right and disruptive voices, some on a par with Farage
We do have quite a number of contributors to our forum who are wholly in thrall with the EU who do not seem to like to talk about what may be about to happen and with Orban heading the EU for the next 6 months
I would be interested to hear how they see the future in a much changing EU
With the U.K. moving left we can provide some much needed counter balance…oh, wait, we can’t. Because we have no way of influencing the EU. For a reason we are not allowed to mention.
And you can take phrases like “wholly in thrall”to the EU and stick them where the sun don’t shine. That and others like the perennial favourite “vassal state” just demonstrate the failure of the right to imagine any form of political, social, or sexual relationship beyond dom/sub.
The problem for those who are in thrall with the EU is they do not critise or challenge them and blame all our woes on Brexit
I accept Brexit has not been a positive but covid and the war in Ukraine are the biggest cause of the COL crisis as all governments who were in power during this period are falling at the ballot box
Personally I voted remain and would like a closer relationship but rejoining seems as far away as ever
Just gaving a scooch at the Deltapoll findings and im a little surprised that Sunaks personal ratings have taken such a small hit, thats the metric i expect to get hammered over DDay. The minus 4 VI is likely a mixture of reversion to campaign mean (23), Reformgasm and some immediate hit from being the nations biggest arse, but his personals not hit so hard (thats my kick him in the nuts joke for today). On the other hand, the economic competence gap has closed a bit which might normally lead to a smaller VI gap..... so perhaps the underlying hit is much worse?! Mondays polls (and any randoms today) have tales to tell! Any hit will slowly unwind i think esp after manifestos but tick tock tick tock.........
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
How much more can they squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie . One thing I’m surprised about is that the latest briefings suggest they’re not going to touch IHT .
This was surely the final Hail Mary . Maybe it might still happen . Or maybe Sunak saving his kids hundreds of millions of pounds wasn’t a good look .
And how much more can Labour squeeze out of the tax avoidance genie? Enough for tens of thousand more NHS appointments? Leave it out...
Those appointments aren’t coming out of the tax avoidance cash machine . I’m sure however that it will do some heavy lifting in other areas.
You think "ending non-dom status" is not part of the tax avoidance regime? And you think it is going to be tax positive? Really? You aren't normlly that naive.
The first obvious sign we have a Labour government will be the flight of capital out of the UK. No doubt lefties will cheer on the departure.
Until they don't have the money to fund hospital beds.
I’m dubious of these tax avoidance savings but all parties think about is getting elected so as long as they can look like they’ve got somewhere to get the money from pre-election they’ll worry about the reality after 4th July . As for flight of capital I don’t see it .
On flight of capital.... If Labour has a big majority, you are going to have a mass of new backbench MPs all looking to get noticed. Some of them might have been councillors, but there will be a cohort who have effectively only known student politics. This "Eat the Rich!" cohort are going to be making noise about how the those with wealth need to pay "their fair share". Which is way more than those who have the wealth will want to pay - they are not going to see eye to eye on what is "fair".
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
I’ll wait and see . But I don’t see why the country should reward the Tories with 5 more years . Can you explain why the Tories should be given that .
Parties aside, I think the Tories handled Covid OK. They protected millions of private sector jobs (whilst the public sector was still rightly getting its salaries and pensions - plus overtime). The process for getting the vaccines in place was one which undoubtedly delivered.
The only difference I can recall from Labour was that Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
I think the Government have handled Ukraine very well.
Not that anyone remembers, but the Government handled the resulting rise in energy prices as well as it could afford to do, with large-scale energy bill subsidies.
This government came to power on the basis of investing in areas that had for generations voted Labour, in the expectation that they would finally get to see some cash. Sadly. Covid and Ukraine took all that money and more. The one saving grace is that if Corbyn had won in 2019, he would have already spent all the cash needed to get us through these two crises. God alone knows how we would have managed. In all likelihood, we wuld have had no money for furlough and would be struggling with millions more unemployed.
One area where this Government does not blow its own trumpet is in jobs creation. They have an especially good case on youth unemployment - this is at low levels that prevous Labour governments could only dream about. When Labour says "What have you done for our young?", the answer is "Ensured they have jobs."
Each of these testing situations was a once-in-a-generation challenge. The government handled them as well as could have been expected. More importantly, I don't see a cigarette paper between how the Government responded - and how Labour says it would have handled things. Those desperate for change - you've effectively had a Labour government for the past five years. Prepare to be very disappointed.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
War gaming the vulnerable, including those with mental ill health who don’t fit shitty Sunak’s Singaporean dystopia.
As per. And as usual it will take years to undo the damage caused by their rhetoric.
What a nasty, wicked, horrible, bunch they are. If they lose on July 4th I shall be celebrating in the streets.
I’m afraid I know too many politicians, most of them Tories, to ever believe they are nasty or wicked. Far more can be chalked up to ignorance rather than iniquity. They genuinely believe that the policies they seek would improve lives, it’s mistakenness not malignancy.
Also whilst the government has failed and run its course to the extent that the Tories deserve the corrective of a serious defeat. They are people, often with a deep sense of passion for their constituents, they have feelings and some dependents. This is going to hurt them and that is to me regrettable even though it is necessary to effect a change of government.
Even if I thought they were evil I would not want to descend to a level of any equivalence with it and would seek to retain my compassion for them. I seek never to wish ill on anyone.
I raised that a few days back when I was being asked where we could cut government spending.
But use of the words "cut" and "spending" in the same sentence sent the PB lefties off on one. Apparently just not possible, and you cant upset the OBR or the BoE or anyone in the Civil Service etc.
But of course at some point the bullet will have to be bitten
I don't discount it - if it's possible and there are no major downsides, bring it on. Unfortunately the FT article is paywalled and you've not bothered to explain what the change really is, so hardly surprising you've not convinced many.
Oh nonsense Dorset boy, My source on the story was not the FT but this has been doing the rounds on numerous sites for about a month. You cant be bothered to look for where savings can come from.
But they will have to be found and Reeves is increasingly boxing herself in.
At the moment I'm thinking the result could be something like this: Lab 40%, Con 25%, Ref 15%, LD 12%, Grn 4%. Not yet convinced of the crossover scenario.
Discounting the LDs as being seen by most of the country as centrist, that essentially means the country is still in two-camps.
I find this fascinating. One of the reasons that the current Tories struggle so much right now is that they see Reform as their own, something to win over and embrace rather than a threat they need to defeat. Reminds me of the Labour / Lib Dem relationship in the run up to 2010.
The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week
There are votes to be had from Reform for performative cruelty.
Who now expects them to be in government on July 5th?
Hence the random policies and promises will get more ludicrous and uncosted. All paid for by imaginary efficiency savings once more I expect.
There's always been scope for Welfare reform, but the obvious retort is "why didn't you do something about it in the last Parliament?".
And in a nutshell, this is why they've lost my vote whatever they do now. They can promise all the things I want them to do, they can offer to pass "The Prole (riches and fame) Bill 2024" and I simply won't believe them.
Talk tough on immigration - well, why did you allow it to get to all time record levels for the last two years? Claim to cut taxes - you made them rise. And you cancelled scrapping IR35 which was one of the few things Truss did that could have driven real growth. We'll fixed the equalities act to talk about biological sex - so when Etc etc etc.
Why should I vote for a bunch of proven liars who appear to hate me? The only card they have left is "Starmer will be worse. It's probably true, but he's going to win anyway so why should I care.
Comments
The far right are the enemy, not allies.
1 Fermanagh and South Tyrone
2 Foyle
3 North Down
4 Upper Bann
Anyway, they had a new batch of years recently, and they had one from the late 2000s, maybe 2006, when the INMO had just started counting the number of patients admitted to hospital without a hospital bed - major crisis, indignity of patients being kept on a trolley in a corridor, politicians earnestly promising that the issue would be fixed. And here we are in 2024, the trolley count figures reach new record highs, the politicians mouth the same formula of words, often the same politicians, bearing in mind the last three politicians to be taoiseach have all been previous ministers for health.
There is this pattern, much more in Ireland than in Britain, of emergency measures being introduced to deal with a crisis, and then becoming normalised, with the underlying problem left unaddressed. My wife thinks this is, in part, due to the culture of emigration. A lot of the people not happy with the status quo, and who might have the wherewithal to do something about it, end up putting their energy into leaving the country, instead of fixing it. And so the country is disproportionately inhabited by people who simply put up with things. (Not sure what that says about us, having moved here.)
And now, even those people are running out of patience.
And so within a year - and probably much sooner - there will have been a significant departure for those shores who have a better understanding of what is "fair". That money will not be paying stamp duty on new properties here, will not be paying VAT on their latest Bentley or Ferrari or super yacht.
And there will be a black hole that those muppets who thought they would give Labour a try will end up having to fund.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#2024
Back in the late 1990s, things were very rosy. Labour had a great economic inheritance. The dotcom bubble bursting was not Labour's fault. Running up a deficit in a boom was a choice by Brown, however. The rejigging of financial regulation, also by Brown, acted to make worse the impact of the financial crisis.
Broadly, the Coalition did a good job of handling the effects, though cuts to the legal sector were ill-considered. Then, post-Cameron, the eye was taken off the economy very significantly. The biggest single factor in economic terms was, of course, the pandemic. Any government would, right now, be dealing with economic difficulty. The Conservatives could've handled things better. But even if they'd done so, the costs associated with barely recovering from the worst recession in history and then suffering the first pandemic in a century would pose a huge challenge.
Labour will, very soon, return to power, most likely in a landslide. But unlike 1997 the question will not be "Where shall we spend all this lovely money?" but "How do we handle this economic challenge?"
(Both Mordaunt Badenoch have have moments in the spotlight this week- neither of them were much good.)
He was in pole position because he'd been Chancellor. He got to be Chancellor because he has been willing to throw the Saj under the bus and become Dom's Sub.
He was available to be Chancellor because he had backed both Boris and Brexit before they were cool.
Before that, we're lost in why he was catapulted into a safe seat with no political testing. Because he was wealthy? Because he was Eurosceptic? Because his face fitted?
But like pretty much everyone else associated with the idea of Brexit, he has failed miserably in office. Even Gove is only a partial exception to this. They've all proved to be corrupt or idiotic or both. And whilst an idea isn't responsible for its adherents, that is suggestive.
It's a technical accounting issue between BoE and the Treasury as fall out from Quantitave Easing.
In effect though it is printing money, so rather counter to the drive to get inflation down.
Despite having to deal with this dreadful inheritance, it is possible that any incoming government might surprise on the upside simply by not being utter buffoons.
Lee Anderson with the pointless overkill
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1799705566459171285?t=XjtDpJWtIobIGWgp3K4rfw&s=19
Not only is he bad at politics, he doesn't even seem to like it. What was his goal?
They clearly don't consider a Labour government is going to act against their interests.
If they lose, the Tories reputation is going to be manure. The victors write the history books. Expect the first few months of the any incoming government lifting the rock revealing all sorts of problems.
It would be nice to know that this is working knowledge of candidates as opposed to, say, a worn-out cliche.
I still think he's only the second-most, or possibly third-most incompetent. Truss and Jonhson were worse at the administrative side of the job.
Any idea why Starmer is doing it?
Brexit is the most consequential thing the Conservatives have done since the last election. More, it is the most impactful legacy of their 14-year stretch in power. When the histories are written, every other failure of this Tory era will be a footnote compared with that epic folly.
Given the odds that Labour will form the next government, it would be useful to know how exactly it plans to set about trying to salve the pain inflicted by Brexit. But Sir Keir Starmer, though an ardent Remainer back in the day, is unlikely to say anything more substantial before he’s inside Number 10.
What Labour isn’t interested in, for fear of exposing its shins to a kicking from its enemies on the right, is engaging the electorate in a wider conversation about the tougher decisions that will be necessary to get to a sustainable future [and tackle the climate crisis].
A grown-up conversation about the biggest challenges facing Britain is especially unlikely to happen during a campaign in which Labour sees no incentive to take any chances with its apparently enormous advantage and the Tories are limping so far behind in the polls that they are terrified of shedding what shrivelled support they have left. Although the creaking state of the NHS, schools, courts, prisons and other key elements of the public realm are supposed to be central to this election, we are not going to have a full and frank conversation about how to revive them because this would entail having an adult discourse about taxation.
The debate we deserve is not the puerile one the politicians are having about whose figures are the more fictitious. What we ought to be talking about is how to modernise the tax system to make it more equitable and more helpful to growth. On tax, the discussion we ought to be having is about how to make it simpler, fairer and more efficient. Just as we should be talking about addressing the climate crisis and the best way to shape Britain’s relationship with its continent. Taboo subjects for both the main parties on the campaign trail, these critical debates will be made to wait until we get to the other side of polling day.
NEW THREAD
I accept Brexit has not been a positive but covid and the war in Ukraine are the biggest cause of the COL crisis as all governments who were in power during this period are falling at the ballot box
Personally I voted remain and would like a closer relationship but rejoining seems as far away as ever
On the other hand, the economic competence gap has closed a bit which might normally lead to a smaller VI gap..... so perhaps the underlying hit is much worse?!
Mondays polls (and any randoms today) have tales to tell!
Any hit will slowly unwind i think esp after manifestos but tick tock tick tock.........
It is an impossible task
The only difference I can recall from Labour was that Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
I think the Government have handled Ukraine very well.
Not that anyone remembers, but the Government handled the resulting rise in energy prices as well as it could afford to do, with large-scale energy bill subsidies.
This government came to power on the basis of investing in areas that had for generations voted Labour, in the expectation that they would finally get to see some cash. Sadly. Covid and Ukraine took all that money and more. The one saving grace is that if Corbyn had won in 2019, he would have already spent all the cash needed to get us through these two crises. God alone knows how we would have managed. In all likelihood, we wuld have had no money for furlough and would be struggling with millions more unemployed.
One area where this Government does not blow its own trumpet is in jobs creation. They have an especially good case on youth unemployment - this is at low levels that prevous Labour governments could only dream about. When Labour says "What have you done for our young?", the answer is "Ensured they have jobs."
Each of these testing situations was a once-in-a-generation challenge. The government handled them as well as could have been expected. More importantly, I don't see a cigarette paper between how the Government responded - and how Labour says it would have handled things. Those desperate for change - you've effectively had a Labour government for the past five years. Prepare to be very disappointed.
Also whilst the government has failed and run its course to the extent that the Tories deserve the corrective of a serious defeat. They are people, often with a deep sense of passion for their constituents, they have feelings and some dependents. This is going to hurt them and that is to me regrettable even though it is necessary to effect a change of government.
Even if I thought they were evil I would not want to descend to a level of any equivalence with it and would seek to retain my compassion for them. I seek never to wish ill on anyone.
But they will have to be found and Reeves is increasingly boxing herself in.
- FT article entitled "The Bank of England is misusing its fiscal powers"
Archive copies- https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/5209be99-3f6b-4ba3-b3f3-49b544f71c28
- https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/5209be99-3f6b-4ba3-b3f3-49b544f71c28
IAS summary (generated by AI?)- https://www.ias.edu/news/bank-england-misusing-fiscal-powers
@Luckyguy1983 , is this what you've been going on about?Talk tough on immigration - well, why did you allow it to get to all time record levels for the last two years?
Claim to cut taxes - you made them rise. And you cancelled scrapping IR35 which was one of the few things Truss did that could have driven real growth.
We'll fixed the equalities act to talk about biological sex - so when
Etc etc etc.
Why should I vote for a bunch of proven liars who appear to hate me? The only card they have left is "Starmer will be worse. It's probably true, but he's going to win anyway so why should I care.