Election Year or Fear!

[Andy_Faber]

I think the country will 'bottle it' and the Conservators will win

[MadAmster]

I think it's totally irrelevant whether it's the Blue or the Red Tories who get in. Nowt will change, at worst, or next to nowt at best. There will be no moving closer to the EU. There will be no hunt for the missing billions from the Covid VIP lane catastrophe or the failed app or the failed test and trace, nobody in court for those shenanigans. More of the same. Pray that Reform doesn't get a majority, things will change, vastly, but not for the better.

I realise that I've painted a pretty grim picture of "more of the same" but that is what I expect. The utility companies will keep on getting fat profits, passing that on to shareholders rather than, especially in the case of the water companies, spending those billions on repairing the broken water system or going for green electricity or building hydrogen plants. They've (Water) now said they need taxpayer's money to sort the huge problems out. just maybe they should have invested in repairs over the past 2 or 3 decades instead of giving it to the shareholders... Nationalise them and pay shareholders 1p a share. They'll moan like hell but it's more than they deserve.

[ramAnag]

I think it's totally irrelevant whether it's the Blue or the Red Tories who get in. Nowt will change, at worst, or next to nowt at best. There will be no moving closer to the EU. There will be no hunt for the missing billions from the Covid VIP lane catastrophe or the failed app or the failed test and trace, nobody in court for those shenanigans. More of the same. Pray that Reform doesn't get a majority, things will change, vastly, but not for the better.

I realise that I've painted a pretty grim picture of "more of the same" but that is what I expect. The utility companies will keep on getting fat profits, passing that on to shareholders rather than, especially in the case of the water companies, spending those billions on repairing the broken water system or going for green electricity or building hydrogen plants. They've (Water) now said they need taxpayer's money to sort the huge problems out. just maybe they should have invested in repairs over the past 2 or 3 decades instead of giving it to the shareholders... Nationalise them and pay shareholders 1p a share. They'll moan like hell but it's more than they deserve.

Small steps, MA.
Agree with many of your fears, although I don’t think there’s the remotest possibility of Reform gaining a majority.
Unfortunately perhaps, I don’t believe there’s any great appetite in this country for a huge move to the Left…as was proved, three PM’s ago, at the last General Election.
What I am reminded of however is the election of Blair in 1997. He was hardly ‘left wing’, but following on from what we’d had to put up with for almost two decades it was, as I remember things, like stepping from winter into spring.
Hoping for something similar but without the screw ups that came towards the end this time.

[swaledale]

I'd say your right rA, Ma is a tad too pessimistic, though the parroting of lines like "no magic money tree" by Labour is depressing. I mean the money is there its just in the hands in a very small percentage of the population who have grown richer as the proportion of those in poverty has grown ever bigger.

But even for all that was wrong with Blair, though he did have the pragmatic Brown as chancellor, by and large life was much better for most.

[MadAmster]

Only a tad, though, Swale.