LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!

She seems to think she is intellectually superior and people should just accept that she knows best.

I wish you wouldn't cut them so much slack just because you used to live there.

I just did a comparison. This year, I would have paid £500 *per month* more income tax in Scotland than I do here.

I know I'm comparatively lucky salary wise, but even so I would certainly notice that chunk off the pay cheque.

I was always British. When the SNP got into a foam ca. 2013, I started to feel English.

Yes, but as I have always said, the political atmosphere really did make a difference. in the end it made me more willing to leave, because I had been made to feel like an outsider for a decade, with a lot of venom being directed to people from where I was born, and with my accent. It does leak out into communities.

If you can't see the parallels, and the dangers posed by the current generation of Tory snake oil salesmen, you aren't paying enough attention.

I'm like Brian, incidentally, to the extent that I feel we need a decent conservative (small) representation in Westminster. It is getting harder to imagine that being the Conservativives.

Indeed. I suspect it will be fannying around the edges, with a lot of finger pointing at the opposition.

I'll admit I am disappointed by the rhetoric, the rookie errors and what is clearly an extremely time limited strategy of blaming the last government. They came in knowing the electorate was sick of politicians in general, and yet they've carried on in the same vein in many ways. No one cares who's fault it is they just want things to be fixed.

It is alarmingly foolish.

I'm not sure many people are fooled by the 'Oh we didn't know how bad things were and now we have to put up taxes' which is just bollox. They should have said that they were going to put up taxes in order to do certain things; however in their rush not to scare moderate voters and the middle classes they ruled rate rises for 4 of the biggest sources of tax revenue - IT, Employees NI, VAT and CT. They now can only really fiddle with more peripheral taxes, but the amounts they want to raise means that these changes are likely to have other implications which mean it is less likely to yield the intended amounts. Apart from the impact on growth etc, which is what they keep saying is so important without doing anything to encourage it.

Yup. There's now a very jaded electorate and ready access to lots of apparent alternatives. Means far less patience and far higher risk of politics lurching more suddenly to our own equivalent of Trump or Bolsonaro.

Labour's approach is out of date and they risk being turfed out as quickly as they got back in.

Not if the alternative is Jenrick or Badenoch.

I'm struggling to think of anything worse than 'Socialism lite' which is what we're getting now. Apart from removing the 'lite'part. Or maybe some godforsaken coalition of Labour, Lib Dems SNP and Greens.

Me too. It was always obvious they would have to bring in more money and that they were just kicking the can down the road and making it tougher for themselves by stating the taxes they wouldn't increase. I actually think that a lot more people are willing to accept tax rises when they are told what they will be doing (e.g. when the Tories proposed raising NI to improve NHS and social care funding following the pandemic).

Honestly haven't noticed any significant difference beyond the planning regs being relaxed. So far tax rises are all TBC, but we knew they were coming regardless.

Oh, little bit awkward, but the Sun is reporting small boat crossings are at their lowest level in 4 years. 😬

Over what period?

OK. As a result of what action by Labour?

I'm going to change my prediction - Badenoch has been too visible, so she probably isn't going to make it through to the final vote. If she does, she'll lose.

Whoever wins won't be leader at the election, though.