2024 Election thread
Comments
-
There is an element of careful what you wish for, as if the Tories do get buried in a landslide then it could be Reform that steps in to fill the gap at the election after next. Especially if the opinion polls are to be believed, namely that people aren't that keen on Labour and their main appeal is that they aren't the Tories. Also as they are unlikely to wave a leftie magic wand and solve the problems that people expect them to.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Hopefully most voters who are disillusioned with the Tories will see that Reform is just an extension of that right wing that is eating the Tories. With a bit of luck the Party will realise their issue is voters want them to return to being a serious, centre right option again rather than continuing to pander to the loony right wingers. Leave them to Reform. They lose the ‘red wall’ seats but they historically managed without those. This time around all I can see Reform doing is costing the Tories seats.
0 -
Reform can't step in to fill the gap. They can't deliver the broad church coalition the Conservatives do/did. Imho
The interesting question is whether or not they can motivate the 2016 Brexit voter who never votes...and the pollsters can't see
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
First past the post. When the vote is split, neither get represented. It's a shit system, but the Tories shot down the alternative in their first duplicitous act back in power.
Is your petard comfortable?
0 -
I don't believe they particularly interested in delivering anything. The last thing Farage and his ventriloquist's dummy actually want is to have to actually implement policies. That requires effort and makes you unpopular when your incoherent ideas inevitably founder on reality. And the pay is not great. Better to bask in the glory of giving a major party a kicking. Than have the responsibility of actually doing some work.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
They're the wish.com version of the current Tory party.
I think what most people on the forum would want is for Reform to act as a magnet for the populist nutter Tories and let the adults gain back control of the Conservative party.
UKIP/Brexit/Reform can go back to being a single digit party and fade into irrelevance when Farage retires.
1 -
I dont have one, it's generally owned by lefties.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
So a bit like the Lib Dems after splitting from Labour all those years ago?
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
No idea, though it wasn't that long ago that Labour were in the same boat. And judging by their policies announced to date, I'm not sure how much has changed other than how far to the left they are.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
The Lib Dems didn’t split from the Labour Party. They formed by the merger of the Liberal Party (who preceded Labour’s existence) and the SDP (who were a Labour splinter). The SDP formed due to members of the Labour Party being concerned about the power of the hard left so I would have thought you’d approve. Reform is the total opposite as it wants to move politics to more of an extreme.
0 -
Was going to say this. UKIP/Brexit Party were clearly feeding off disaffected Labour voters. Johnson mostly won because he could do Farage better than Farage, and was clearly happy to steer left on state intervention to get those votes. That stopped working so now Reform need a new host.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Did it stop working or did the Tories forget what got them elected?
0 -
I don't think those are mutually exclusive.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Yep, SDP split from Labour, my bad. However my point was about fading into single digit irrelevance, which the Lib Dems have managed to do very effectively.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
All of politics in the UK has shifted slightly to the right over time. (The Corbyn era was not a lurch left, it was a lurch to populism, which I see as being a lurch to wishful thinking.) Liberal thinking, by definition (?) is centrist, so if someone else occupies most of that space, the Lib Dems become irrelevant.
0 -
Not sure if you think the LD decline is a model for what will happen to Reform. I don't see many similarities. Farage's endlessly rebadged vehicle doesn't really exist to gain electoral success. They've been bumping along at relatively similar levels of national support without actually getting anyone elected. All their MPs have been second hand from the Conservatives and none have won as a UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform candidate and their showing in local elections is well below their polling as well. For all their ineptitude, I think the LDs do actually want to govern and are reasonably successful at local politics. I think Reform are just using the electoral system as a vehicle for publicity. I don't think they have any real intention of winning office.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
It is normal for more extreme parties to poll well up to an election and then get squeezed come polling day.
I think "not letting labour get a 300 seat majority" is quite a powerful motivator for Reform type voters to vote conservative.
0 -
The more the conservatives lean into trying to get the reform vote, the more they expose their own record on immigration and the more they associate themselves with characters who moderate right wingers may find a little distasteful.
0 -
Agree. You would expect at least half of the numpties who give protest answers to polling companies to follow muscle memory on election day. This doesn't mean that they are any more informed, mind you.
0 -
I think the electorate just want to beat the shite out if the Tories
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
Sure, but when a loss is already priced in.
Like I said, my older colleagues could not be more hardcore tory voters if they tried. They also want this govt out, but they know that'll happen but they fear a labour party with too much room for manoeuvre.
0 -
We could probably argue all day over whether the Lib Dems made themselves irrelevant or have been made irrelevant by Labour's newfound moderate image that they are trying to project to get elected. Or a bit of both.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I'm just talking about the end result rather than how they got there or will get there.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Arguably they lost their base due to being seen to have conceded key policies as part of the coalition. For what it's worth I felt they were pragmatic as the junior partner. They managed to get some of their policies in place but had to concede others, notably tuition fees, and probably paid an unfairly heavy price. I also think their input into that coalition was of benefit. Compared to what we've seen since I felt both Parties did a decent job in difficult circumstances.
0 -
They played too nicely and the Tories kept throwing them under the bus. They would have been better, for example with tuition fees, to clearly state that they were just over rules. Instead they did coalition as though they were part of a cabinet within the same party.
0 -
Cameron is the only only PM in my lifetime who campaigned on the strength of their government and won more seats. The Lib Dems have never found the right phrasing to take credit for their part in coalition, and of course even if they did now, it's ancient history.
(Boris won a massive increase in seats but wasn't really campaigning on any previous record).
0 -
I think the coalition did pretty well. Some good achievements like the massive raising of the tax thresholds. Able to keep the right wing nutters in the Tories under control because the worst excesses would never get past the LibDems. Felt mostly like we had adults in charge.
I can't believe how badly it turned out for the LibDems though; partially because of being thrown under the bus, partially because the UK doesn't really understand coalitions and they didn't know how to position their role within it with the electorate.
I don't think it will work out for the Tories long term though. I remember seeing a documentary where it was claimed Cameron only made the referendum pledge because he knew the LibDems would block it, and we know how that turned out....
0 -
The SNP being in disarray is presumably good news for Labour.
0 -
From what I've read it won't make too much of a difference in Westminster due to the PR system up there.
IIRC Holyrood was set up specifically to get minority talking shop governments and the SNP majority was the outlier.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
