British Politics

tories fingerblasted in the by-elections

reform getting 10%+ in both is key, that is virtually 100% boris voters flooding to the exits. tories are ****ed unless they can get a 2019 deal where the farage mob stand down (something they have promised never to repeat)

The Tories being down 20-25 points, with Labour gaining 10-15 and Reform gaining 10 is literally their worst nightmare and could lead to absolute oblivion.

That being said, I would suggest a little caution in interpreting by-election results. They're very low turnout and smaller parties have a chance to target seats with hyper-focus that they can't repeat in a general.

Yeah, Reform were the big story. if you add their votes to the Tories share in both by-elections, then they beat Labour.

Jojejoe is right in his assessment, however Reform also appear to be slowly winning votes from Labour, as both main parties have been on a shallow downward trend post-Truss.

by Elrazor k

Yeah, Reform were the big story. if you add their votes to the Tories share in both by-elections, then they beat Labour.

Jojejoe is right in his assessment, however Reform also appear to be slowly winning votes from Labour, as both main parties have been on a shallow downward trend post-Truss.

I don't think you can do that in a FPTP system, some of the voters who voted for either party wouldn't have voted a common candidate.

You're right and Elrazor made another simplistically stupid post.

Awful for tories, fantastic for the right.

Not sure I buy this. I think that if Labour do win big then we could see the rise of the absolute nutters in the Tory party which would bode very poorly for general elections moving forward (see: the aftermath of 97)

We've already seen some of the "absolute nutters" rise and become Deputy Chair of the Tory party, Home Secretaries, Chancellor, and even PM. There are more absolute nutters in Reform or like Oaskshott/Pearson etc are writing extremist propaganda pieces in the Telegraph/Mail etc or are on GB News. wtf are you talking about? Wake up.

British elections are won on the centre ground, and as far as we know that hasn't changed, so if the Conservatives swerve right after their likely imminent defeat and abandon the centre to Labour, they'll lose again as Labour did under Foot and Corbyn, when Labour were perceived to have wandered off into the bushes on the left, addressing themselves to wonky party activists rather than the electorate.

Extremist propaganda pieces in the Telegraph? I find it to be a very good newspaper unlike the Mail.

One of the very few MSM to attack some of the most absurd narratives about the purported need to get to net zero (which is a Tory policy as well) in the correct way for example

So they've finally acknowledged that climate change is real? Cool.

Since we happily don't have PR, it won't get the right anywhere near a single seat in the Chamber.

It'll be interesting to see what a Starmer government does with the railways. The Major privatisation has not been a great success (and Christian Wolmar in his book British Rail interviewed Major and found that he had completely misunderstood the issues and was factually wrong about British Rail's highly successful finances and operations at the time) and LNER on the East Coast and of course the overall infrastructure authority Network Rail, now Great British Railways with the old BR 'arrow of indecision' as its logo, are already state-run. And people are profoundly fed up with continual cancellations due to 'staff shortages' because the train operators rely on overtime working as normal and staff don't turn up if they don't feel like it. There is as always a danger that a Labour government could become a hostage to distinctly backward and corrupt (and in some cases pretty overtly Communist) union barons, but if there were sufficient strength of will at No.10 it could perhaps be sorted out to general satisfaction. I don't think the public favour private railways much.

"i love democracy until people vote candidates i dislike, in which case i am happy they are denied representation even if they are millions of voters"

That could well be true. I wish it contradicted what I said

They already have almost every seat in the chamber

The 'left' is now the likes of wes streeting and his 'open the door wide for the private sector'

and reeves ffs.

you are very complacent about what the actual right would actually do in actuality

Not remotely. maybe that appliers more to you

When the right come back - and they will - a soft right labour party will have teed everything up very nicely for them. Just like blair did for this lot.

Was Brexit the centre ground? Historically you are correct, but just because things have happened in the past is no guarantee of the future. I think the argument can be made that Brexit was an indication that the centre will not always hold.

The problem with the left is that they have lost their sense of identity. IDK whether they have lost interest in the working classes or whether they just take them for granted = either way, the working class vote is up for grabs. Therefore the middle and working class are both now swing voters in a way the upper middle/pensioner vote is not.

Starmer will beat the Tories in spite of his political offering, not because of it. Either the Tories will quickly regroup under someone like Badenoch, or they will flounder for a couple of years allowing Farage to sneak in through the back door and take over. I think either Badenoch or Farage beat Starmer in 5 years, as his flagship policy is to maintain the same policies that have got the Tories kicked out.

It’s a terrible newspaper written for pensioners, carrying some of the most absurdly awful opinion pieces you’ll find anywhere.

Probably a good moment to mention that I had a piece published in the telegraph this week lol

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02...

wat

Disappointed that you are accepting monies to focus on shitposting elsewhere tbh.