General British politics discussion thread

I was responding to a post about the tory electorate and why they keep voting tories and I simply suggested, well, weak opposition helps. IMVHO, of course. Where you got the notion i was holding the leader of the opposition personally responsible for the decisions of the government, I've no idea, quite frankly.

the tories have 80 seat majority and the main oppoistion are piss poor, labour have gone from a clueless clown to one that can't find any message to gain traction. The only opposition of any consequence are the snp.

By clueless clown I assume you mean the man who had May running to the DUP of all people. Not exactly a win by Labour standards but in Brexitian it wasn't that bad and he tapped into voters better than given credit for. He is gone though so it's not him I was talking about All I said was Labour are untested in a major election currently but more importantly there is more to the opposition than them and the Tories are handing Scotland and NI to the opposition on a silver platter

Amazing. How did she manage to land that interview? Are the bbc even the slightest bit embarrassed about this or do they imagine the whole nation will be agog to hear Laura chinwag with her "very special source"?

He's box office for an ever decreasing circle of oul wans, oul fellas and bigots.

The longer the Tories stay in power, the more incredible the final explosion will be.

Johnson is a callous individual who cares about nobody only himself so nothing surprising about anything he comes out with. But the tories will always look after their own, as today's news about their plan to address social care shows.

They are going to raise the £10-12bn needed to cover it with a 1% increase in national insurance contributions. This means it will be younger, lower paid workers who will pay most. Nobody over 66 pays NI and earnings over £50k are only levied at 2%. Nearly 70% of over 65s voted tory in 2019 and they are 20% of the population and rising.

And they get to face the electorate bleating on about no income tax rises. As i said, the tories always look after their own.

That's all quite true. In 2017, for example, the pollsters all pretty much failed to call it by drastically missing the significance of the youth vote. The latest more sophisticated polling models are supposedly less prone to such gaps, but it can only ever remain an inexact science.

That said, i look at the political landscape in the uk at present and wonder what exactly is in it for younger voters, under 40ish let's say. Labour have made it patently clear it's mostly about the red wall for them, whatever it takes and everything else seems an afterthought right now. There's the greens, lib dems and various small parties and indos, but not exactly a richly gleaming choice of options, you'd have to say.

Both main parties face a similar political dilemma. In pitching for one particular bank of the electorate - even within their own target zones on right or left - they inevitably risk alienating another set, kind of a zero sum game, just the tories tend to do it better and they have a clearer run on the right than Labour have on the other side.

So various groups such as young people, muslims and other minorities, end up feeling marginalised and taken for granted. The "they have nowhere else to go" principle. Well, they can always just decide to stay at home on polling day for a start!

Well yeah.

I would prefer 100% of the electorate to vote but failing that I would prefer everyone over 65 and anyone prone to voting for Fianna Fáil to stay home.

The point i was making here was chiefly in relation to the Labour party. In prioritising the red wall seats, which they are clearly doing, they are risking alienating their young progressive, minority base and the old assumption that these voters "have nowhere else to go" is a risky hat to hang on imo.

I don't have to imagine this because it is already happening. The party has lost in excess of 100,000 members over the past 18 months and that is going to keep increasing and put their finances in even greater peril.

So the question is where do these disillusioned voters go? Maybe they do stay loyal with nowhere else to go, maybe they go green or lib dem or, just possibly, they stay at home. That is an option for them. Which was my point.

Very ageist. Absolutely.

I have no qualms about the most cosseted in society having less input tbh.

Ah, yeah. The same "trots" Starmer hoodwinked into backing him for the leadership by promising to be a unified and signing up to the 10 pledges which he has since spent the last 10 months reneging on one by one. More fool them.

Never say never, but i suspect we may be nearing a tipping point on tory covid corruption. This guy didn't just buy a stately country estate (£1.5m worth) on the back of a £120m ppe contract that delivered 0.26% usable items, he bought a holiday home too as well as a house for his parents. Time for labour to take the gloves off, the anger over this is feral.

And from a metaphorical Dead Man (Matt Hancock) to a literal one - an inquiry into the shenanigans around Greensill Capital found that the main person responsible was? A dead man, Jeremy Haywood.

His widow went on the BBC and "accused the inquiry of 'trying to set up my husband, as far as I can see, to divert attention from things which happened much later after he died'".

Harsh words from the Financial Times.

Will it make any difference? Probably not, could well be one of those pieces they can point to in future to say they didn't shy away from such a story but truth be told, if they're not reporting on just who is involved and detailing their links to the government and their specific business interests then it is easily brushed off.

After the overruling of the peerage vetting committee to give the big red box with the seal to Peter Cruddas, this latest thing is bear-in-woods.

I forget who but one commentator made an interesting point about this story over the weekend. Regardless of how the public react or don't, it exposes a potential rift at the heart of the tory project. Basically, a lot of the supporters and big donor money comes from the property or developer sector and what they want is lax regulation and planning laws. But this is anathema to the wealthy and middle class white collar tory voters in the shires for whom nimbyism is a core value. Some of this may have factored into the recent tory collapse in Chesham and Amersham.

Who knows but thought it was an interesting take anyway.

Given that he is reported to have laughed after the statement and said to reporters "I thought that would get you going" he knows exactly what he is at.

The Tories used Brexit to help secure votes they normally would not have won in the last election, but they have no interest in "levelling up" Britain.

I thought it was an excellent wind up by Johnson.