Careless Tories!

[Trickytreesreds]

There is, currently, no recognisable Labour Party. They are, quite simply, Red Tories.

Correct. Like it or not, as I said. Politically there is very little between the current Tories and Labour.
Both would/have spent up. Have soft policies on things like immigration.
Yes the Tories have wasted/ made a dogs dinner of their majority. But when they get the boot, if floks think things are going to magically improve, you're wrong.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Judging by some of my left leaning friends opinions, 1 isn’t quite that simple, they would prefer a ‘Corbyn who isn’t Corbyn’ rather than a nice guy who’s a wet lettuce. Not sure how that would influence less devout people regarding voting, it wouldnt affect my friends who’d vote Labour no matter what

Which is why we have a parliament full of pigs wearing red and blue rosettes, taking turns in who have their snouts in the trough. Currently more blue snouts in there but the red ones are squealing and pushing to get to the front and dip theirs in the swill next.

[ramAnag]

I like to cause trouble

Four years on and the situation has changed in at least three very significant ways.
1. Starmer has infinitely more credibility than Corbyn ever had.
Agreed.
2. Even a blind man on a galloping horse cannot fail to recognise that Johnson is a compulsive liar, devoid of integrity and completely lacking where the capacity for decency and moral judgement are concerned.
You may wish to not have a drink in your hand whilst reading this bit: Disagree, I'd say he was the hardest performing PM we've had in decades. He had his man-management / personal failures, granted, but on the important deliverables, he delivered with decency and moral judgement.
3. Brexit (Johnson’s flagship back in 2019) is no longer the ‘opportunity’ it was once regarded by the gullible as being and it has become the disaster that many of us always warned it would become. ‘Let’s Get Brexit Done’ is no longer a call to arms amongst the politically naive (or worse) and is now more widely recognised as an entirely discredited piece of rabble rousing.
Agree with "Brexit (Johnson’s flagship back in 2019) is no longer the ‘opportunity’", but after that, you're just insulting people - imagine if Johnson called people; "gullible" or "politically naive (or worse)". It's no longer the opportunity because it's done, we can't leave again. Alternatively, maybe a party will pledge to seek re-joining the EU, opportunity begs should someone want to make it BREJOIN election.

Swales right, though I wouldn't be one of those voting for a Johnson led party.

Sorry RS...been in Manchester all day.

Which ‘important deliverables’ and which examples of ‘decency and moral judgement’ would those be then? I honestly don’t know.

I’m really not being insulting...well not intentionally anyway...and I’m sure Johnson has called people much worse things. Factually though...long before the Referendum and for far too long after it...I, and many others, were pointing out what Brexit would most likely lead to. It, again honestly, gives me no pleasure to have been proved right, but the facts would appear to support that view and if that is the case then those that voted for it and believed the lies peddled by the likes of Johnson and Farage were indeed gullible and naive.

Glad we agree on 1. and that you too wouldn’t vote for a ‘Johnson led party’.

[Trickytreesreds]

Sorry RS...been in Manchester all day.

Which ‘important deliverables’ and which examples of ‘decency and moral judgement’ would those be then? I honestly don’t know.

I’m really not being insulting...well not intentionally anyway...and I’m sure Johnson has called people much worse things. Factually though...long before the Referendum and for far too long after it...I, and many others, were pointing out what Brexit would most likely lead to. It, again honestly, gives me no pleasure to have been proved right, but the facts would appear to support that view and if that is the case then those that voted for it and believed the lies peddled by the likes of Johnson and Farage were indeed gullible and naive.

Glad we agree on 1. and that you too wouldn’t vote for a ‘Johnson led party’.

Sorry, but you haven't been proven right yet at all.
Everyone I knew, expected it to stall/ go backwards for a while. You don't undo 40 years of EU regs/doctrine over night.
Also, the Tories have never fully been behind this decision. There is a hardcore blocking where they can.
Had the Tories pushed all the options open to them, then I could sit back and say RA was right. This will cost them over half their vote at least.
Until then, no.
Sorry.

[ramAnag]

Sorry, but you haven't been proven right yet at all.
Everyone I knew, expected it to stall/ go backwards for a while. You don't undo 40 years of EU regs/doctrine over night.
Also, the Tories have never fully been behind this decision. There is a hardcore blocking where they can.
Had the Tories pushed all the options open to them, then I could sit back and say RA was right. This will cost them over half their vote at least.
Until then, no.
Sorry.

It isn’t about me or ‘rA was right’.
You are the most (only now?) outspoken advocate of Brexit on here and have repeatedly been asked to provide examples of how we have benefited from Brexit.
So far all you’ve come up with is that we’ve avoided a USoE. That’s debatable at best and while I can understand, though not agree, with that particular point...actually all that’s happened is that we’ve been excluded from any such group.
Time and time again we hear Brexit mentioned as one of the problems delaying our recovery. Time and time again it’s brought up in the same breath as Covid and Putin’s war as one of the trio of huge problems facing us.
Is that really what you and the Brexiteers voted for...a hindrance to our recovery and the mess we find ourselves in today?

[swaledale]

It isn’t about me or ‘rA was right’.
You are the most (only now?) outspoken advocate of Brexit on here and have repeatedly been asked to provide examples of how we have benefited from Brexit.
So far all you’ve come up with is that we’ve avoided a USoE. That’s debatable at best and while I can understand, though not agree, with that particular point...actually all that’s happened is that we’ve been excluded from any such group.
Time and time again we hear Brexit mentioned as one of the problems delaying our recovery. Time and time again it’s brought up in the same breath as Covid and Putin’s war as one of the trio of huge problems facing us.
Is that really what you and the Brexiteers voted for...a hindrance to our recovery and the mess we find ourselves in today?

Oh dear, Thicky is almost as clueless as Truss - this hardcore blocking the Tories from taking the opportunities available from Brexit.?
Has he not noticed that virtually all those Tories who were Remainers and had any power were purged by Johnson or left on their own accord?

He does need to explain exactly how this shadowy group have managed to block a government with an 80 seat majority and a cabinet stuffed full of rampant right wing Brexiteers? I await his words of wisdom and reckon I'll be waiting a long time!

Its the current moan at Brexiteers that somehow magically the "opportunities" presented by Brexit haven't been grasped, or that it will take time. I mean like all believers in cults, they are so brainwashed as to not believe the evidence, but hey ho its there and undeniably so.

What will cost them the vote, is the realisation on behalf of those dimwits who voted, that virtually all the promises made by the Leave side in the Brexit referendum were undeliverable, I mean you'd either have to be a fan of a low tax, low wages, low regulation, economy where the venture capitalists and hedge funds got richer whilst the majority got poorer or like Thicky, extremely dim to believe otherwise!

Or of course you can blame the EU, for treating the UK as a third country outside the EU and not a very important one either! Somebody forgot to inform the Brexit supporters that the USA, China and India were slightly more important in the scheme of things for the EU than the UK. Oh, yes I forgot, those German car makers that would force the EU to do a deal that suited the UK, I mean the loss of the UK market and only having 26 other nations to sell to would be a massive blow.

Then you have immigration, which is now higher than before we left, only now its not from EU countries, its from the rest of the world!!

Undo, 40 years of EU regs/doctrine? Does Thicky realise that the UK was a leading the way in the EU on both laws and regulations? All that will happen is that those regulations that impinge upon the corporations exploiting the ordinary person, will go, most of the others will just become UK instead of EU regulations.

As with his post on the NI protocol, where he completely misunderstands the actual facts, and also believes the propaganda that right wing anti EU media spout Thicky demonstrates clearly just how dumb he is.

[swaledale]

There is, currently, no recognisable Labour Party. They are, quite simply, Red Tories.

Thats not the case. The current party have to deal with the reality of politics in the UK, that the majority of the media are right wing and that a good 45% of the population are for some unfathomable reason convinced of voting for the Tories who obviously don't give a toss about them once they have voted.

I know that for most socialists, they would rather be victims out of power and moan continually, but in the UK to even stand a chance of being in power and delivering some fairer policies, the party has to be centre left and it also has to learn from previous mistakes when the Tories adopted some of their policies.

Starmer is sometimes too cautious for my liking and I also accept that Labour will not necessarily adopt policies that I would like to see adopted, but there is no doubt that they will be much better for the majority of people in the UK, than the Tories who fast becoming a rabid far right party.

If we had proportional representation, then a more left wing coalition is possible, though it would of course also mean that a far right coalition could be possible. Be careful what one wishes for!

I'd like to see a more left wing Labour party, I also know it wouldn't get elected!

[swaledale]

Which is why we have a parliament full of pigs wearing red and blue rosettes, taking turns in who have their snouts in the trough. Currently more blue snouts in there but the red ones are squealing and pushing to get to the front and dip theirs in the swill next.

You keep trotting out this line and frankly is lazy and ignorant commentary. The vast majority of MP's don't have their snouts in the trough, are hard working and unrecognised most of the time. Of course there are those whose main aim seems to be enriching themselves and living life high on the hog.

But even in that scenario, its not difficult to compare the Blair/brown years and the benefits that labour brought to the UK as a whole and the last decade of Tory government with austerity and Brexit.

It is true that Labour isn't perfect, but you hold up any human institution that is? Wherever humans gather together, there will be those intent on doing good, those intent on gaining power and those who just like to cause trouble for their own amusement!

Describing Starmer as a wet lettuce is just an example of how perverse voters are and how difficult it is to actually govern a country where inevitable many people want different things.

Surely a competent if boring politician is whats required right now, we've tried charismatic and flamboyant and much as they are fun, its not really what you need to govern a stable country!

[MadAmster]

So where’s the third way MA? I know you’ve mentioned revolution but there are too many ‘fat and happy’ for that to happen, it’s about as likely as the Lib Dem’s or a coalition. You arent standing in the **** bucket you’re just looking in from just over the edge so you might have another viewpoint

There isn't a viable 3rd way.... yet. There might never be one. Here's something to ponder... Labour ends up as the largest party but without an overall majority. To create a majority they'd have to form a coalition but the only 2 parties that could give them a majority are the Blue Tories or the Reform (or whatever they're called) Party. Right wing or even more so... Obviously they won't do that. Then it's over to the 2 right wing parties who do have a majority between them. Now, I wouldn't wish that on anybody...

Unfortunately that leaves revolution as the more attractive answer.

[ramAnag]

If we had proportional representation, then a more left wing coalition is possible, though it would of course also mean that a far right coalition could be possible. Be careful what one wishes for!

I'd like to see a more left wing Labour party, I also know it wouldn't get elected!

Nail on the head!
Personally I don’t ‘get’ the ‘wet lettuce’ reference to Starmer...either way he’s likely to have a longer shelf life than a lettuce, which is more than the last PM could manage!

The truth is though, in three years, Starmer - admittedly aided and abetted by a never ending list of Tory dishonesty and incompetence - has, from a standing start, made Labour electable.
The last people to do that were John Smith (possibly the best PM this country never had) and Tony Blair.
He didn’t do too badly until a combination of the Banking Crisis and him dishonestly cosying up to a Republican US President undid it all.