LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!

kingstongraham

Coopster the 1st wrote:

Hypocrite wrote:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/16/exclusive-conservative-donors-open-secret-talks-nigel-farage/

I spotted this on the front page of the telegraph last night.

Conservative Party donors have opened secret talks with Nigel Farage about an electoral pact which would see the party not stand candidates against the Brexit Party in dozens of seats at a snap general election.

Seems the Tories really are going full von Papen.

I see the usual hypocrites are turning a blind eye to Plaid Cymru's proposed stance in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election about whether they should stand a candidate or step aside for other pro-remain parties

It isn't hypocritical to think Farage is a malign force in British politics.

Nothing wrong with the Conservatives considering electoral pacts - I was very much in favour of the coalition government and the country would have been better if there had been an agreement before the 2015 election to try to continue that. But considering a pact with Farage and helping him into government? That's not good.

rjsterry

Some pretty worrying survey results from the membership.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/po ... bers-would

Wonder whether there will be any acceptance of the findings or the usual blather about having a zero tolerance approach.

kingstongraham

rjsterry wrote:

Some pretty worrying survey results from the membership.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/po ... bers-would

Wonder whether there will be any acceptance of the findings or the usual blather about having a zero tolerance approach.

Zero tolerance sounds appropriate.

rick_chasey

I found this tweet from Sarah Vine (wife of Gove and 'mail columnist) very revealing...

https://twitter.com/WestminsterWAG/stat ... 7924018176

Watching the #RestaurantMakesMistakes and astonished to learn that people with dementia struggle to get benefits. Is this true? And if so, how is this not a national scandal?

rolf_f

rjsterry wrote:

Some pretty worrying survey results from the membership.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/po ... bers-would

Wonder whether there will be any acceptance of the findings or the usual blather about having a zero tolerance approach.

But they would welcome a woefully incompetent one..........

rjsterry

Not sure if this is parody or meant to be taken seriously. https://www.conservativehome.com/platfo ... untry.html

rick_chasey

Couldn’t read on past the no-Churchill counterfactual.

hopkinb

rjsterry wrote:

Not sure if this is parody or meant to be taken seriously. https://www.conservativehome.com/platfo ... untry.html

There are a group of people who live in a fantasy world, untrammelled by facts, thought or analysis. I saw a recording of some speech by that khunt Rees mogg, where he was blathering about this sort of shyte. Utterly delusional nonsense. History misrepresented or downright altered to further their political aims.

No amount of counterargument makes any difference. It's like a religion.

john80

Rick Chasey wrote:

For the Tory voters around here; what is your take on the clear correlation between Tory gov't and material increases in homelessness and children living in poverty?

Is it a price worth paying for prosperity elsewhere? The data is quite plain about this.

To save posting up the long data posts the data essentially shows that even in the Labour era there was poverty and we have to be careful when we compare figures across different decades as many of the poverty measures are related to average wages hence the perverse reality that increasing the minimum wage increases the number of people in poverty. If you work on the assumption that those in work have to be wealthier than those not in work by a difference sufficient to make people go to work then the reality is there will always be poverty. As lets face it if I was not a high earner and my work was of limited interest to me then you can guarantee that I would not be going to work if the state was providing me with equal benefits as those in work.

You can then look to sort out the burdens associated with those in poverty that are not money related and have the biggest positive benefit. I think if you sort out their housing, education, integration and transport then there is nothing stopping us looking to create a environment where work is the answer to your poverty issue. We also need to consider the wider issues of those on benefits due to illness. We have written off large sections of this population as seemingly unable to work. For sure there are those that cannot work however there are a great many that with the right job could and therefore should. If we reduced the difficulties associated with going on and off benefits and therefore the disincentive to do so we could be in a better position. We might well find that when someone is offered the contact for a job for 3 months they take it as it increases their earning by 20-30% and come the end of the contract they can seamlessly go back to the prior arrangement with some work experience and maybe even a desire to go and do it again.

Obviously if you look towards a socialism style model then there is strong evidence that this does not lead to a overall positive benefit to society as demonstrated in many nations over the last 40 years. Whilst the government can set an environment to benefit everyone there will always be those that are unwilling or unable to take those opportunities and essentially will be poorer than those that can. I have yet to see a programme that is likely to eradicate poverty or remove homelessness and lets face it many Labour governments have given it a good go. You can throw a lot of money at the problem and reduce it a little bit but this in my experience annoys those closest to them in income levels as they see the effort they are putting in and that of their neighbour and ask the obvious question, what is the point.

rick_chasey

The spending profligacy proposed by both contenders (either through tax breaks and spending promises or being chill about how costly no-deal will be) does really illustrate how much austerity was indeed a political choice.

john80

Rick Chasey wrote:

The spending profligacy proposed by both contenders (either through tax breaks and spending promises or being chill about how costly no-deal will be) does really illustrative how much austerity was indeed a political choice.

Maybe in the short term however the juries still out on whether we can grow our way out of the last 40 years of the UK economy and government spending.

rick_chasey

I'm still totally boggled that no-one seems to care anymore than both leaders are campaigning to do things that anyone who knows anything knows you cannot do.

Why is this not the biggest story?

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm still totally boggled that no-one seems to care anymore than both leaders are campaigning to do things that anyone who knows anything knows you cannot do.

Why is this not the biggest story?

Only a tiny minority of the public will have a say in who becomes the next PM so pretty much all you can do, especially when both options are doing it, is shrug your shoulders and then hope you get a chance to help depose them at the next GE but ultimately politicians are just realising that a large part of the electorate (and not just in the UK) will give you their vote if you say what they want to hear even if you know it can't be delivered. As has been said before we get the politicians we deserve.

Stevo_666

Pross wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm still totally boggled that no-one seems to care anymore than both leaders are campaigning to do things that anyone who knows anything knows you cannot do.

Why is this not the biggest story?

Only a tiny minority of the public will have a say in who becomes the next PM so pretty much all you can do, especially when both options are doing it, is shrug your shoulders and then hope you get a chance to help depose them at the next GE but ultimately politicians are just realising that a large part of the electorate (and not just in the UK) will give you their vote if you say what they want to hear even if you know it can't be delivered. As has been said before we get the politicians we deserve.

You should have joined the Tory party and had your say. Worked a treat for me with Labour

Pross

Stevo 666 wrote:

Pross wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm still totally boggled that no-one seems to care anymore than both leaders are campaigning to do things that anyone who knows anything knows you cannot do.

Why is this not the biggest story?

Only a tiny minority of the public will have a say in who becomes the next PM so pretty much all you can do, especially when both options are doing it, is shrug your shoulders and then hope you get a chance to help depose them at the next GE but ultimately politicians are just realising that a large part of the electorate (and not just in the UK) will give you their vote if you say what they want to hear even if you know it can't be delivered. As has been said before we get the politicians we deserve.

You should have joined the Tory party and had your say. Worked a treat for me with Labour

It's just not worth the hassle as there's no party offering sensible policies. I voted Tory at every GE up until last time but they've allowed themselves to lurch too far to the right as result of the over-stated threat from UKIP (and now the more likely threat from the Brexit Party). That said, even now they are preferable to a Corbyn led Labour government. The whole of UK politics has become paralysed by a single issue created by someone trying to kill the issue once and for all (when it wasn't even really an issue to most people). I despair!

Stevo_666

Pross wrote:

That said, even now they are preferable to a Corbyn led Labour government.

This is what people need to keep in mind when they vote.

It's also very good evidence that my joining the Labour party was £3 well spent

rick_chasey

Is it not telling though that people feel it's either they get a candidate who in cloud cuckoo land who is electable OR they get a candidate who is honest about the limits of what someone in the role can do?

Why do they seem to be mutually exclusive?

Pross

I think you're looking at it the wrong way, if being and open, honest and sensible politician who was prepared to compromise made you electable then they'd all be doing it. For some reason the majority of the electorate want someone who says they'll give them everything they want rather than explaining what can and can't be delivered. We're in a democracy so it is the fault of the electorate not the politicians. People whinge like fark about politicians but the vast majority vote for one of the two main parties time and time again irrespective of what they deliver.

tangled_metal

The public just wants the magic money tree. It exists! I've seen it!

With that I'm off to join a political party in the giant padded cell called Westminster. Don't forget to vote for me everyone. I can do blonde and bumbling (Where's the hair dye) or I can do old and antisemitic (less hair dye needed). I can even do swivel eyed loon (but unlike one of the ukip/Brexit party lot I've never been barred from one of my locals for being a cnut of the first order).

Rick calm down. If you think the current lot are bad the generation after will be so much worse it'll probably blow your mind! Just pick a rosette colour you're happy with (or least worried about getting in) and keep voting for that.

rolf_f

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm still totally boggled that no-one seems to care anymore than both leaders are campaigning to do things that anyone who knows anything knows you cannot do.

Why is this not the biggest story?

If you expect people to lie then it is no longer a story when they do so.

And we all know the consequences. The gullible majority believe the lies and vote for them out-voting the realistic minority that know they are lies. Hence Brexit. Hence Trump. Hence Johnson.

tangled_metal

Or you vote for one set of liars because the other set of liars are worse. Does it really matter that they lie when all sides have their own lies too?

Of course it matters but you can't change the lying only the colour of the party behind it.

rick_chasey

Ballsy move by Cameron on the prog last night when asked about the legacy of doubling homelessness and use of food banks, he says he should have cut more, sooner.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

Ballsy move by Cameron on the prog last night when asked about the legacy of doubling homelessness and use of food banks, he says he should have cut more, sooner.

Saw that in the write up. Did he expand on why?

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Ballsy move by Cameron on the prog last night when asked about the legacy of doubling homelessness and use of food banks, he says he should have cut more, sooner.

Saw that in the write up. Did he expand on why?

Yeah. Basically, UK needed to cut, and he should have made more hay whilst the public backed the cuts.

(Same thing every PM says in hindsight. Should have done more while they still had the honeymoon mandate).

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Ballsy move by Cameron on the prog last night when asked about the legacy of doubling homelessness and use of food banks, he says he should have cut more, sooner.

Saw that in the write up. Did he expand on why?

Yeah. Basically, UK needed to cut, and he should have made more hay whilst the public backed the cuts.

(Same thing every PM says in hindsight. Should have done more while they still had the honeymoon mandate).

If I remember correctly it was a fairly consistent criticism of that period that the cuts were enough to seriously disadvantage those that relied on that spending, but not enough to make a serious dent in government finances.

rick_chasey

Shoutout to lizz truss for accidentally selling arms to the Saudis.

The Tory cup of talent floweth over

surrey_commuter

I would agree that they did not do enough to balance the books and so left us in a position where a permanent deficit is the new normal.

I feel the Conservative party has left me?

Who should a socially liberal, free marketeer, believer in a small state vote for?

rjsterry

Surrey Commuter wrote:

I would agree that they did not do enough to balance the books and so left us in a position where a permanent deficit is the new normal.

I feel the Conservative party has left me?

Who should a socially liberal, free marketeer, believer in a small state vote for?

Pick any two.

rick_chasey

Rick Chasey wrote:

Shoutout to lizz truss for accidentally selling arms to the Saudis.

The Tory cup of talent floweth over

Love how they are so bad at actual governance that this doesn’t even garner any comment.

kingstongraham

Rick Chasey wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Shoutout to lizz truss for accidentally selling arms to the Saudis.

The Tory cup of talent floweth over

Love how they are so bad at actual governance that this doesn’t even garner any comment.

Yes - just another "oopsie, what am I like?"