WDB
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Post by WDB on Jun 17, 2024 8:45:01 GMT
Wokingham then? Yes, would be great to see that one fall. There was a young fellow I didn’t know in our Sonning Common team on Saturday, so I deduce that yours isn’t the only young person hungry for change.
My two have the choice of where to vote but have independently decided their votes will carry more weight by the Thames. Our deadweight Tory lobby donkey has also decided to retire, so our target is an ex-Number Ten staffer from the period in 2022 when Johnson was insisting everything was fine and no rules were broken. So she’s complicit in that.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 4, 2024 21:57:16 GMT
Should be an entertaining night. I walked over 25km today, delivering ‘good morning’ leaflets and doing ‘knocking up’ canvassing, into the final hour this evening, and I’m sure I wasn’t the busiest in the team. Doorstep response has been just fantastic; it’s been a great effort to be part of. Sticking it up the Tories as far as it will go won’t fix the damage they did but it feels pretty sweet tonight.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 4, 2024 22:00:30 GMT
Well done for doing that WDB. I know I am thankful there are people like you doing this.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 4, 2024 22:26:25 GMT
Thanks Rob. It was the 2016 referendum that converted me into an activist. It helps that the local LDs are such a nice bunch — but then, aren’t most people if you get to know them?
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jul 5, 2024 5:27:07 GMT
I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime, Hexham going red.
North Northumberland (Berwick) had always been LD during my lifetime as a result of tactical voting - farmers, landowners, fisherman being conservative; miners, blue collar being labour; LD was the safe ground ensuring "the other side" didn't win. The switch to conservative wasn't a total surprise in 2010s. I wonder if Labour will get around to delivering the dualing of the A1 through Northumberland that has been a political hot potato of the area since the 1970s.
Of personal concern is the rise of the right in Europe (Hungary, Italy, Spain, France, Germany) and the prospect of the man-baby in the US being elected at the end of the year. NATO will suffer as a result and Putin will not stop at the Polish border with a weakened defence force as opposition.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 5, 2024 6:13:24 GMT
Yes, there are worrying signs elsewhere. The Tory collapse at least shows most British people do not respond to being urged to hate others — although four Ukippers in parliament make an unwelcome counterpoint to that. Let’s hope the French can show some similar fortitude this weekend.
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Post by EspadaIII on Jul 5, 2024 8:48:44 GMT
I am not sure it is about hate. The number of other independent MPs and the Greens, all of whom spend more time campaigning against things than for things, indicates that this is not buried. How a campaign about Gaza is meant to benefit a white single mother in a tower block in Tower Hamlets I don't know.
The Tory vote collapsed, which was no surprise, mainly to due to incompetency - the fact that the solidly Jewish Finchley constituency went Labour, says it all. Labour's overall vote has barely increased, and the super majority it now has is not down to Labour's policies but the desire to remove the SNP from Scotland politics and the Tories from governing. Starmer has a hard job and limited appeal. If he succeeds then well done to him, but like when Blair took control, the economy was and is already improving. He needs to capitalise on that and invest properly in public services.
Most people (including me) would be content for taxes not to fall if there was a clear improvement in roads, NHS service, sorting out rail etc; it won't happen overnight but if they start to tinker with taxes such that successful business people don't see the point in being successful, we are on a downward spiral. The Tories started the process with the reduction in CGT allowances and not increasing the thresholds for Income Tax and IHT. If Labour make it worse, the wealth of the country will be exported pretty quickly. In my line of work, I already know of many High Net Worth individuals who are selling up and moving overseas to more pleasant environments for entrepreneurs and investors.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jul 5, 2024 9:17:46 GMT
That, public services, better roads, etc., Esp is maybe where the country would like to be, the reality will be somewhat different.
Encouraging outside investment for energy projects, as an example, will be more difficult due to underinvestment over the last three decades plus more recent cuts with the countrys close market neighbours and increasing legislation for access to those markets.
Public sector pensions are swallowing huge chunks of cash each month. There are two issues here: 1. Much of it has not been invested, the tax payer is on the hook for shortfalls 2. No one can put a number on, or is willing to publicly put a number on, when peak final salary pensions will occur in the public sector and how much/many will be eligible for it.
To fund this public services will continue to be at the brunt of the cost cutting and immigrants will continue to be the cause in the media. The above probably doesn't even begin to scrape the surface of the state of the economy.
Tax rises and inventive fund raising ? You bet !
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Post by EspadaIII on Jul 5, 2024 10:07:04 GMT
So there will be a flip flopping of governments until someone bites the bullet with a huge majority and deals with these issues. Only the private sector makes the money to generate taxes and if taxes are too high..... The Tories with an 80 seat majority could have done it, but they didn't (and didn't do lots of other things) and now they are out. Serves them right but the real people to suffer will be the tax paying population; i.e. everyone on this forum.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jul 5, 2024 10:25:00 GMT
Mr Farage is now laughing all the way to the bank. In addition to his Euro MP pension, he serves one term in parliament and tops it up with his UK MP pension in addition to his stockbroker days.
He'll probably be cutting back on tabs and beer if he wants to get his monies worth.
Edit: House of Lord's will be next on his bucket list.
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Post by Alanović on Jul 5, 2024 10:26:52 GMT
Well done Dubya and the HoT crew, maybe my lad's efforts down in the ex-Redwood area helped get them over the line too. One Tory left in Berkshire, slightly ashamed of my home town now.
Looking at the constituency map on the Beeb, one could now plot a walk from Carshalton to the outskirts of Bideford on LibDem territory. Shame it's not quite Dover to Penzance, but I'll take it as a massive win. Let's see if the media now pivot to covering the LibDem pressure to sort out or EU relationship and the care system in this country, instead of vomiting Reform and Farage propaganda all over us incessantly.
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Post by EspadaIII on Jul 5, 2024 10:39:11 GMT
Don't get too excited. This was a vote for 'anyone but the Tories'. The LibDems increased their share of the vote by 0.6% but increased the number of seats by 785%. Not overly Liberal or Democratic. This is not the David Steel moment of 'go back to your constituences and prepare for Government!'; this has been a protest vote unlikely to be repeated if there were an election in a year's time.
The turnout was incredibly low so this is very much a case of the Government lost the election rather than the opposition winning it.
As it happens I would prefer the STV style of voting, as it would produce better representation for the electors and probably strong government. PR doesn't work as so many countries (and the EU) have already shown us.
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Post by Alanović on Jul 5, 2024 10:53:06 GMT
Well we've now got 4-5 years to experience what it's like with LibDem MPs around here rather than Tory ones. If they do well enough, there's no reason to go back to the Tories.
You can decry the result as not overly Liberal or Democratic as much as you like, but this is the only serious party which proposes changing the system to address that. Had this election been under PR, the way people cast their votes would have been materially different, and I'd wager that the LibDem vote share would have been far higher nationally. And, as it happens, the national vote share they won yesterday was almost precisely proportional to the number of seats won for the LibDems. Which sounds pretty Liberal and Democratic to me in any case. It's the Labour vote share/seat ratio which is totally out of whack.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jul 5, 2024 11:06:15 GMT
That's how this system works.
2015 GE SNP got 1.4m votes, or 4.7% 56 seats. LD 2.4m votes, 7.9% 8 seats. UKIP got 12.4% of votes and, correct me if I'm wrong, 1 seat.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 5, 2024 17:53:42 GMT
Ousting some Tory MPs relied on the help of the Reform Party - add the Reform votes to the Conservative ones and they'd have beat Labour in a few. Glad the outcome was as it was of course.
If we had PR then the Liberal Democrats would have got more seats but so would Reform. Labour would have got fewer because their percentage of the vote was quite low in real terms.
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