So many brilliantly funny one-liners I can't pick out just one this time. Rather, it is this that is the most compelling sentence: " how these courts and institutions are slowly, but systematically, replacing the freedoms we were all born with, with a series of rights and privileges which they control and administer."
Will give it one last go and vote 'Reform" pointlessly in my 'last Tory seat to fall constituency' in the hope that if everyone who voted for Brexit voted Reform then 17 million votes and one seat (Clacton?) would show up our crap electoral system for what it is: a totally crooked charade.
Thank so much Bettina. I think if Reform, or anyone, wanted to get those Brexit votes they would have to be offering something more positive than ‘Let’s Destroy The Tories’. That’s what the clever class always dismiss about Brexit. It was so popular with the broad population because it was offering a positive alternative for a lot of people, rather than simply the ‘anti-Europe’ vote which our grumpy bosses claimed.
I like the SDP’s idea of a moratorium. But again, ‘Zero Immigration’ is an easy spin for the liberals.
I’m not sure what the best way forward is, but I think we need a positive message for young people which focuses on them, not on immigration, and the control of immigration flows naturally from that message, rather than is that message.
It’s all about focus, and at the moment we are focusing, understandably, on the biggest symbol of Tory failure. (There are other contenders sure). I feel we can probably never win on this battlefield. Just make a lot of noise. We need to change our long term strategy. Don’t attack the Maginot Line, it’s too well defended, take them off guard by sneaking through Belgium. (I understand I am now identifying with the Wehrmacht. 🤣)
You're right! In the way we have been led astray over decades by distractions and the real agenda has played out in the background ie the breakdown of the nation state, sovereignty and borders. No party actually advertised the abolition of the nation state, they just dressed up policies that would achieve that aim as something else.
Young people basically can't afford life. We might appreciate that the law of supply and demand pushes down earnings and inflates housing costs as a consequence of the influx of millions of people, but many young people, whilst experiencing these ills, have an indoctrinated blind spot to the root cause - immigration. They can't get past the anti-immigration = racism brainwashing they have been subjected to for the entirety of their lives - they just can't. It's a knee jerk response.
Yes. But we also need to spread our net wider. I think the focus on immigration is ultimately a dead end. Especially in FPTP. We need to offer a brighter future for young people, and people with kids, and people looking to start a family etc. The real issue is that the government (I mean the whole thing, the extended state, not just Parliament ) is too big, powerful and overbearing.
It is, you're right. I've said on here before that people are only socialist with other people's money, not their own, so what is needed is less tax (which would result in less government).
Maybe it's simplistic but if the gen pop understood that not belonging to any supranational organisation and stopping foreign aid (especially to countries with space programmes like India) would allow the personal allowance to be doubled for example (I doubt know if that is mathematically correct, but you get my meaning) they would vote for that. If benefit claimants had to work for local authorities in exchange for their benefits and that meant council tax would disappear, they would vote for that. Taxation and spending is all so disconnected in people's minds - I would re-connect it as a priority.
That's a very good point, Bettina (about the knee jerk response) People are terrified of the accusation of racsim (as we saw during the grooming gang scandal) The Overton windown has shifted to the point that even discusssing it (never mind asking for it to be reduced) is deemed problematic. However, I feel that the issues have become so hard to ignore, that the elephant in the room is finally being addressed. And that accusation is losing its potency and sting. Most people (myself included) just want immigration brought down to sustainable levels, not stopped completely. However, this still amounts to racism/xenophobia in the eyes of many liberals, especially young people. I was the same at their age!
I agree. It irritates me beyond belief that the topic of immigration becomes reduced to a debate about race. It is nothing to with race and all to do with numbers. I think a) racially hybrid humans are better biologically + b) zero immigration is needed to restore balance in the availability of resources in a small island reliant on food imports to avoid starvation and the total destruction of our, quite frankly, superior culture (people come HERE after all), before it is swamped and obliterated by demographic change.
Late to this thread (was busy with my own). I like your idea of a positive pitch to the young....longterm that must surely be the way to go. The huge difficulty of that pitch though is that is would need to be not just a political sales-pitch but also a kind of parental one....as in "we all need to grow up; not expect pennies from heaven; not disappear up our college aquired SJW backsides; think about our responsibilities (to our fellow citizens), not just our rights" etc. A difficult message to get across. It would need a to be conveyed by messenger both charismatic and wise (a rare combination?)
Hi Graham. Yes a tricky message. But I’d suggest less tricky if it is goal based.
Eg
‘Our goal is affordable housing for all. At the moment this is un achievable because of these problems. List problems. This is how we propose to overcome these problems to reach our goal. ‘
Same for health. Same for economy. And even environmental stuff.
At the moment we are concentrating on the problems, not the goals. This is a fundamental mistake.
I wasn't here for Brexit but my impression was that a lot folks just wanted to say Stick It to the ruling classes. "we've had enough of experts" etc.
I acknowledge first of all that different people wanted it for different reasons and many had good reasons for supporting Brexit. But many more just wanted to say "screw you" to the establishment. See also: Donald Trump.
Maybe. I think a lot of people were hopeful things would change for the better. Don’t confuse what politicians said on telly with what people in the street actually felt. As you know I was, and am 100% for Brexit, and neither Boris nor Farage was articulating my thoughts at all.
I agree, Bettina - brilliant one-liners, LSO! My fave: "When aides told him there was an event to commemorate thousands of military aged men swarming onto beaches, he just naturally turned up in Dover." I spluttered my tea all over the place.. 😂
This was also good: 'at last the British peoples, from hedgerow to highland, from castle to council estate, have come together in pursuit of a common cause...the utter annihilation of the incompetent, useless, quisling, Tory party'. But the whole essay a bit long again!
Who's heard Dom Frisby's new song? 'Maybe we should have let the Nazis win'.
The main Parties draw policies at random from a bag, like bingo callers. They have the rapt attention of players hoping to win some of their fellow players’ money. Some go home with more than they paid to get in. The House keeps most of the money. Nothing of mutual benefit has been produced, just temporary distraction and general disappointment. It’s nothing more than consensual mugging.
Yes. I heard a thing from somewhere which I liked and will now garble, but basically. ‘If two people get together and vote to steal from a third, it doesn’t suddenly make it moral.’
Yes, LSO, it’s the main flaw in democracy, anticipated by Aristotle over 2000 years ago: it fails when the needy and greedy vote privileges for themselves.
You have to vote, or you don't get the right to complain. Even if it seems pointless.
I have seen articles that claim you only win from the centre ground, and articles that say the centre ground is the graveyard of this election. The former look at BBC Question Time and protests in London, and the latter look at Europe. It would seem that Europe is shuffling towards populism, and yet we are stuck with the same old choice between Labour and Labour lite. Why is this?
I have given a lot of thought to this, and I now know the answer. It's blindingly simple. It's "first past the post."
I know lots of people say FTFP is essential for strong government. I could make lots of criticisms of this. The last 14 years for example, where a big majority led to nothing at all. Or the 13 before, which led to disaster. My cynicism even makes me say that as almost all government intervention is bad, if none of them has the power to do anything, so much the better. Or point out that most of government now seems to happen in the ECHR, IMF, UN, OECD, Natural England, the Climate Change Committee and our courts. But all that misses the point.
FPTP is in the interests of Labour and the Conservatives to preserve, as they swap between more or less socialist failure. But even that is not the real issue. It's the thumping great entry barrier to any new party that's the problem. In the Netherlands the Farmers Party came from nothing in a breath. In the UK, UKIP got millions of votes and no seats. Furthermore, candidates for new parties have had real lives, and that gives the opportunity for good old MSM to look back at everything they have done in the past and dig something up. Plus Sunak did wrong foot Reform, and they had no time to come up with 600 candidates, so it's hardly surprising that there's more than a few fruit loops in there.
There is only one way forward, and that is a drubbing of the Conservative Party, a reverse takeover by Reform, an ejection of the "one nation" socialists, five years of utter disaster under Starmer, and a hope that there might still be something left of this great country after its ravaging by the likes of Starmer, Rayner, Reeves, Lammy, Streeting and the rest of the sorry crew. I don't like Galloway much, but his description of Starmer as a block of wood birds nest in, only capable of producing briefs with which to bore a judge to death was rather funny. What was not funny was Starmer saying that his family would only go to the NHS even if that meant a significantly poorer outcome. The Dalek peeped out from behind those spectacles. Such a person is utterly unfit to govern.
Hi Jeremy. Yes. I’m nervous of such a big change to our voting system. But I think you might be right. I don’t know the actual figures off the top of my head, but it was something like UKIP got 4 million votes and no seats. The SNP got something like 40 seats. So something isn’t working somewhere.
Despite the probable likelihood of Reform hoovering up several million votes with very little reward given that its votes will be well spread rather than concentrated, I remain totally opposed to PR. Yes, the attraction is obvious but it is superficial. It is the absolute guarantee of a permanent stitch up by the big establishment parties which will happily form coalitions as required to keep their “centrist”, technocratic elitist regime going forever.
The best compromise is the one that we rejected in a referendum in 2011, ie the Alternative Vote system. The great merit of this is that it provides the route by which new challenger parties can emerge without the wasted vote fear that keeps people voting LibLabCon. Everyone who truly supports UKIP, Reform or whoever can safely vote with their convictions knowing that, in the event that they are too small a cohort of people, their votes can then convert to the preferred (or least hated) establishment party option. But then we can find out the true strength of the new party’s appeal and they might even start winning loads of seats. Especially now when the incumbent parties are so widely despised. Alas, none of the main parties was really interested in this change (it was a sort of sop to the Lib Dems in the Coalition who really wanted a vote on PR) so the argument for it was never really made. Indeed, most people thought it was a referendum on PR and not surprisingly therefore rejected it. In my view, a terrible lost opportunity.
Which was the intention of David Cameron. The referendum ticked the box of the coalition agreement. He had no intention of promoting any change (nor had Labour) and it wasn’t what Clegg wanted.
So nobody campaigned on it and, surprise surprise, not many voted. A complete farce. But in my view then and to this day a terrible lost opportunity to improve our governance.
I get that, and the situation in Scotland shows how PR can give small parties disproportionate influence (although FPTP did that in 2010 here). But my comment concluded with the fact that you can overcome FPTP from the inside, hence why Reform must take over the Conservative party. Unless someone goes to the ECHR and gets them to rule that FPTP is a violation of their human rights...
Ha ha. Maybe ECHR interference in democratically elected institutions is an infringement of voters’ human rights too..
I know that Reform in Canada did just such a thing, and so it is being held up as a template, but do you really think that is feasible here? I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, especially if there is a total Tory wipeout, but do you think it is likely? It seems a bit ‘this happens and then this happens and then this happens and then this happens’ to me. A bit like an accumulator at the betting shop. What do you think are the actual chances?
If it just ends up as the Conservative Party with some Reform policies, will the electorate believe them? I think we may have to have a different name, as well as a different PM, but in the end it may be worth it.
As might expect [Thanks LSO for the mention!), I would dispute your first sentence. By voting you accept loser’s consent, you might complain, but fundamentally you took part and accept by default the outcome. The incumbent parties use this to justify their position - a high turn out indicates voters are content with what is on offer. What is actually on offer are two sides of the same coin, whoever wins nothing will change. My argument is that with the current situation (fptp favouring the two faces of the uniparty, no real representation of the voters views), not voting is the only meaningful way to signal you are not consenting to the outcome or accept the legitimacy of what has become of our democracy. That said, I think we are both arguing for the same outcome - the replacement of this faux democracy with something that truly engages with and expresses the beliefs of the voters, not just a rubber stamp exercise for a bunch of identikit elites.
An interesting viewpoint, but I lean to the view that as citizens of this country, we accept the constitution we live under, and that constitution requires a choice to be made every 5 years or less to avoid dictatorship. Whilst I wholly agree that all the parties bar Reform are socialists, so we don't really have a choice, that doesn't change the fact that democracy was hard fought for, and we should vote. I would add that the last politician I voted for was Margaret Thatcher in 1987. All votes since have merely been against the rest.
Plus, you never know, your vote might matter. People buy lottery tickets every week for the chance to win millions, and your vote has more chance of counting than that.
I find myself agreeing with both you and P Jeremy. I think instinctively I would finally err with you. If only from a’ use it or lose it’ angle. I always think how kids are not taught about stock and shares, because ‘you know, it’s not for you’. I do think they would love us not to vote. They tried to suggest during Brexit that only ‘clever people’ (like them) should have the vote. So if they are scared of us having the franchise it probably still has value. But I also think P is right that sometimes the only way to make your point is to kick over the table.
But is not voting, or spoiling the vote, really doing that? I could take the simple view, as I suspect many do, that there is little chance of your vote actually being the one that matters (like the Monty Python sketch and the split in the silly vote), but I just feel a social obligation to vote.
I fully understand the sentiment. Many people have struggled to ensure we have the vote, some have died. I have spent many elections, local and National either voting for the least worst option, as a protest vote or even spoiling the ballot paper. Also, I agree that a democratic constitution is a precious thing in this world, and frankly an historical rarity. My contention is that since the 1960s, which I think was in retrospect a high point of actual democracy in this country (way before I could vote though), the elite have fought back to regain control of the system. The infiltration of both Conservatives and Labour to turn both into fully owned institutions of the ‘Oxbridge class’. The removal of politicians from any other source, apart from the odd token representative to wheel out whenever needed. The growth of quangos to remove power from democratic institutions to bodies stuffed with elites, a function that the EU serves at a pan-European level. The use of ‘degree only’ entry to many jobs where it is clearly overkill to control who can get these jobs. I fear the elite have subverted the institutions to remove the impact of democracy, to effectively nullify our vote. I fear they have made getting the change needed extremely difficult. But hopefully between those of us who actively disengage from this broken system, to those who register their feelings through a protest vote, we may find a way to force the required changes through democratic means, through opening up the space for one or more new parties to break through the fptp system and replace the uniparty.
One the one hand, you have the two giant parties, Labour and Conservative, each with its massive party apparatus, stream of donations, a rigid process to let only the "right" potential candidates in, and a career path that takes them into Parliament without the slightest risk, or glimpse of the real world. Like robots, they march into their seats and nothing changes.
On the other hand, you have the disrupters, with little or no money, with seasoned campaigners who have history, so vulnerable to MSM "investigations," no real infrastructure, and the constant risk of letting in people who turn out to be complete PR nightmares.
In a PR scenario, in countries with less blinkered MSM, a small party can start with one key policy, win votes, and build from that base, as the Farmers party has in the Netherlands. It may take some time, but they will get experience, infrastructure and donations. When that happens here, as with UKIP in 2015, they get 1 seat for 12.6% of the vote, and Plaid got 3 seats for 0.5% of the vote.
That is why I say FPTP can only be breached from the inside, by turning the Conservative Party into a centre right party, using the mechanism of a big number of Reform votes. Even those as stupid as Conservative Central office will surely see that if Reform takes more votes than the Conservatives, FPTP will doom us to permanent socialism unless they take the centre right ground and merge.
Lots of points to agree with here. I do think it's a problem that we have so many professional politicians who did PPE at Oxbridge. More diversity of backgrounds would be better. I also agree that an electoral system that allows small parties to break through would be better. STR would be my favourite.
I only half agree on the degrees-for-everyone thing. I just blogged about it actually and have Episode Two in the works. I agree it's wrong that politicians in the 90s and onwards encouraged people to get degrees who didn't need to get degrees but I don't think it's about controlling or keeping down the rest. I think degrees have just become a cheap way for employers to cherry pick their employees. They don't really need someone with a degree (in most cases) but the certificate acts like a cheap competency test.
Last point: I read a blog today that argued that there are a lot of decision that are better removed from politicians — because the popular choice is often the worst choice but the politicians would promise it anyway to win an election. Setting interest rates over here, is an example; but also the way that Americans elect their judges and seem doomed to vote for the worst judges imaginable.
I think even voting for Count Binface or the Greens when they have no chance of winning expresses your dissatisfaction better than not voting. Not voting just looks like you are too lazy or you don't care.
Tragedy is whatever way you go can and will be twisted by politicians as acceptance of their divine right to rule. I’ve done the protest/ballot spoiling approach in the past and all that happens is they will say they have won their majority on the back of a more than 50% turnout so they are a legitimate Government. Yes, if you don’t vote the claim will be that you are apathetic. My argument though is that by participating, you agree to be bound by one of Democracy’s core principles, losers consent. I’ve reached a point that I refuse to give that in the sham elections we’re now facing.
I think this is a very fair position P. I maybe just feel I should vote for something rather than nothing. Though I appreciate that you are characterising that ‘nothing’ as a message with value of its own. I was very happy to vote for Amy Gallagher in the London mayoral election, even though she had zero chance of winning, for instance.
Totally agree. I wouldn't worry about the quality of candidates in any party however - they are simply lobby fodder in the Commons and even in a governing party's Cabinet they do as they're told. The Blob runs everything anyway.
I was saying this morning that isn't it hilarious that Europe is lurching to the Right and we're about to vote in a Hard Left Labour party. Maybe we should have stayed in the EU lol. #voteReform
I don't think green policies or gender bullshit or kneeling for BLM are hard left policies. It's perfectly possible to oppose all of those policies* and still be on left.
Besides, the BLM stuff doesn't affect anything in this country and the gender stuff is past its peak. It will be forgotten soon.
Hey Ian. Yes and I’d agree with Doyle that it’s not going anywhere. Too many talentless scolds are making too much money, and gaining too much power from it, to let it go now.
But isn’t Ragged correct? Being left wing doesn’t make you woke. It just means that it’s more likely that you are. Paul Embery, Claire Fox and Rosie Duffield are all of the left. But they have each stood up to this stuff. Sometimes at great personal cost.
Excellent post LSO! One of your best yet! 👏🏼👏🏼 Basically, we’re all doomed really aren’t we?! We may as well vote Reform then! I’m looking forward to lighting the blue touch paper, standing back, and seeing what happens!! 😁
Thanks Ady. Much appreciated. Ha ha. There’s no more of a ‘Dad’ Image in my mind than my own Dad overseeing our garden firework display in the 1970s. Happy Days. ‘Come to Woolworths and buy your seasonal explosives. Follow the safety rules and you probably won’t be blinded!’
Thanks for the laughs LSO! I am willing to wager, come 5th July, Sunak will be in California working for the Tony Blair Institute, with the rest of the lizard people.
Ha yes! He’ll be banging down the WEF door. I actually cut a bit about Klaus Schwab and Tony Blair, but do you really think they’d want a loser like Rishi?
They took Jacinda Ardern. Frankly, Sunak has never been interested in Britain or its people. PM was a springboard to ‘better things’ and his wife has been explicit publicly they are leaving when he is done. Which he is.
Starmer is no stranger to Davos, having been invited in 2023 to address the Forum. In January 2023, he was asked by a journalist to choose between "Davos" (i.e. the WEF) and "Westminster" to which he replied "Davos".
SPIKED magazine had an excellent article on him recently -
Hi LSO, another brilliant, if darkly humorous, article that again captures the situation we face. I’m not sure if it is wishful thinking, but I sense this is different to 1997. Then the Tories were hated and there was a desire to turf them out. But it feels different now. Defeat is not enough, it’s almost become personal and only total political annihilation will do. Not sure if you that’s what you see also.
Thank you for capturing a much more succinct expression of my views!
Thanks P. Yes. It feels personal. I think people genuinely feel betrayed. I know I do. Mainly over the wasted opportunity of Brexit in my case I think. And then I remember the lockdowns, and then and then…. It’s a long list.
Thanks for sharing them in the first place. It was a great point well worth repeating.
Very good. Very good. I laughed out loud so much I lost count at 27.
My only issue is that you suggested the election as kind of boring. To the contrary! This is the most significant election of my lifetime — maybe even since 1922 when the Liberals were wiped out. The election result might be a foregone conclusion but that's just how elections work in our system. They are boring until one party starts to get a bit of a lead: slowly at first, and then suddenly, all at once.
It would change our politics forever if the tories get wiped out. As I've said before, I predict that if the tories go away, Labour will split soon after into the boring centrists that you hate and the fanatical progressives who you hate with a passion. But, more importantly, it will open up the field for other parties to jump in and maybe even be contenders when all the old parties lie broken on the floor of the House. It's true that Starmer is not going to change the electoral system that gave him 400 seats but he might not get a choice if the new Progressive Half of Labour Party and the Greens and Reform and Lib Dems have any say.
"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is…"
We live in exciting times!
At the very least, you'll finally have an answer to the question "But what benefits did Brexit actually bring?" It destroyed the Tory Party. Hoorah!
Thanks! Yes. Maybe my ‘it’s all too boring’ was more a useful comic conceit than anything Ragged.
I am so intrigued to see if your long term prediction of a Labour split will come true. I maintain that like hyenas on a dead wildebeest they will just fight over the corpse of Britain, jockeying for position and potentially easing Starmer out at some point before replacing him with their own populist. Maybe Rayner. Is that a nuts idea? Can’t see how Libs and Greens etc can gang up on Starmer if he has such a massive majority. But it’s all speculation. Exciting times indeed.
Ha ha finally we both find some worth in Brexit. Also. Thanks for the other thing. But I maintain we probably just live in separate wings of the same house.
Hope not Julie. Revolutions of any stripe tend to leave the people at the bottom worse off while they shuffle the bosses about at the top. The situation in the US is terrifying I think-kangaroo courts are celebrated, democracy is becoming something only ‘the good people’ should get to enjoy. I hope we can avoid the worst of that.
“….and the Channel 4 Election Night coverage, a show I have worked on during pretty much every election night since 2010…”. Ooh, that’s a tantalising snippet! Would you care to elaborate a little? You must have been a pariah in the C4 world of very High Status Opinions!
Not at all. People are pretty decent, but it is a very left leaning world. I remember in 2015 being the only one on the production team who wasn’t distraught at the Tory majority, Ed Milliband was the clear favourite! I kept my head down!
I would be interested in reading your story. I like horror stories, and I've also had an idea for a spy story set in a near-future world that has divided between those who wear masks and those who do not, in a sort of Cold War style.
That won't work because you will know who is on your side and who isn't. Oh wait, that's like Zombie movies. Doh, always preferred Invasion of the Body Snatchers anyway
I always felt that last shot with doppelgänger Donald Sutherland pointing out the real human and sort of screaming, was a brilliant metaphor/meme for cancel culture.
Yeah, it kind of boils down to libertarianism versus authoritarianism in the end which is a well trodden path. As a satire it wouldn't be very subtle. But Le Carre and Len Deighton always managed to write good stories even though we knew who the bad guys were. I could also work in some mystery stuff that might be supernatural or not. I also like cyberpunk and stories told at street level, where an innocent person gets mixed up in high powered stuff (like North by North West). There are various ways of approaching it.
Great post. As others have said, too many fabulous one liners to praise them all.
I seem to have found you and Ragged Clown on the same day. Intelligent humorous analysis from opposite poles. A rare treat.
I will probably also vote Reform as a protest vote. There seems to be an assumption that as a right wing party it will only take votes from the Tories. Do right and left mean anything anymore? Surely much of its agenda (and leader) will appeal to the red wall voters who deserted Labour in 2019?
It’s interesting isn’t it? It seems that Red Wall voters are going back to Labour, while betrayed Tories like me are choosing Reform, if only as a super charged protest vote. I agree with you about right and left. The party with the manifesto which seems most in tune with the electorate’s stated preferences, left on economy, right on cultural issues, is the SDP. But they are a tiny fringe party at the moment. But there does seem to be a huge opportunity in that political space. ATB.
Hilarious. Haven't laughed so heartily since Blair got in in 1997. It's like accelerating towards a black hole in a spaceship together with LibLabCon waiting to be torn apart by tidal forces when you know that the end will be so fast that your brain will not register it before it is vapourised. and they are screaming because they don't know. I will definitely come back when the election is over. In the meantime I've got some other things to do. Cheers.
So many brilliantly funny one-liners I can't pick out just one this time. Rather, it is this that is the most compelling sentence: " how these courts and institutions are slowly, but systematically, replacing the freedoms we were all born with, with a series of rights and privileges which they control and administer."
Will give it one last go and vote 'Reform" pointlessly in my 'last Tory seat to fall constituency' in the hope that if everyone who voted for Brexit voted Reform then 17 million votes and one seat (Clacton?) would show up our crap electoral system for what it is: a totally crooked charade.
Thank so much Bettina. I think if Reform, or anyone, wanted to get those Brexit votes they would have to be offering something more positive than ‘Let’s Destroy The Tories’. That’s what the clever class always dismiss about Brexit. It was so popular with the broad population because it was offering a positive alternative for a lot of people, rather than simply the ‘anti-Europe’ vote which our grumpy bosses claimed.
Maybe the vote for zero immigration is all it needs to be?
I like the SDP’s idea of a moratorium. But again, ‘Zero Immigration’ is an easy spin for the liberals.
I’m not sure what the best way forward is, but I think we need a positive message for young people which focuses on them, not on immigration, and the control of immigration flows naturally from that message, rather than is that message.
It’s all about focus, and at the moment we are focusing, understandably, on the biggest symbol of Tory failure. (There are other contenders sure). I feel we can probably never win on this battlefield. Just make a lot of noise. We need to change our long term strategy. Don’t attack the Maginot Line, it’s too well defended, take them off guard by sneaking through Belgium. (I understand I am now identifying with the Wehrmacht. 🤣)
You're right! In the way we have been led astray over decades by distractions and the real agenda has played out in the background ie the breakdown of the nation state, sovereignty and borders. No party actually advertised the abolition of the nation state, they just dressed up policies that would achieve that aim as something else.
Young people basically can't afford life. We might appreciate that the law of supply and demand pushes down earnings and inflates housing costs as a consequence of the influx of millions of people, but many young people, whilst experiencing these ills, have an indoctrinated blind spot to the root cause - immigration. They can't get past the anti-immigration = racism brainwashing they have been subjected to for the entirety of their lives - they just can't. It's a knee jerk response.
Yes. But we also need to spread our net wider. I think the focus on immigration is ultimately a dead end. Especially in FPTP. We need to offer a brighter future for young people, and people with kids, and people looking to start a family etc. The real issue is that the government (I mean the whole thing, the extended state, not just Parliament ) is too big, powerful and overbearing.
It is, you're right. I've said on here before that people are only socialist with other people's money, not their own, so what is needed is less tax (which would result in less government).
Maybe it's simplistic but if the gen pop understood that not belonging to any supranational organisation and stopping foreign aid (especially to countries with space programmes like India) would allow the personal allowance to be doubled for example (I doubt know if that is mathematically correct, but you get my meaning) they would vote for that. If benefit claimants had to work for local authorities in exchange for their benefits and that meant council tax would disappear, they would vote for that. Taxation and spending is all so disconnected in people's minds - I would re-connect it as a priority.
That's a very good point, Bettina (about the knee jerk response) People are terrified of the accusation of racsim (as we saw during the grooming gang scandal) The Overton windown has shifted to the point that even discusssing it (never mind asking for it to be reduced) is deemed problematic. However, I feel that the issues have become so hard to ignore, that the elephant in the room is finally being addressed. And that accusation is losing its potency and sting. Most people (myself included) just want immigration brought down to sustainable levels, not stopped completely. However, this still amounts to racism/xenophobia in the eyes of many liberals, especially young people. I was the same at their age!
I agree. It irritates me beyond belief that the topic of immigration becomes reduced to a debate about race. It is nothing to with race and all to do with numbers. I think a) racially hybrid humans are better biologically + b) zero immigration is needed to restore balance in the availability of resources in a small island reliant on food imports to avoid starvation and the total destruction of our, quite frankly, superior culture (people come HERE after all), before it is swamped and obliterated by demographic change.
Late to this thread (was busy with my own). I like your idea of a positive pitch to the young....longterm that must surely be the way to go. The huge difficulty of that pitch though is that is would need to be not just a political sales-pitch but also a kind of parental one....as in "we all need to grow up; not expect pennies from heaven; not disappear up our college aquired SJW backsides; think about our responsibilities (to our fellow citizens), not just our rights" etc. A difficult message to get across. It would need a to be conveyed by messenger both charismatic and wise (a rare combination?)
Hi Graham. Yes a tricky message. But I’d suggest less tricky if it is goal based.
Eg
‘Our goal is affordable housing for all. At the moment this is un achievable because of these problems. List problems. This is how we propose to overcome these problems to reach our goal. ‘
Same for health. Same for economy. And even environmental stuff.
At the moment we are concentrating on the problems, not the goals. This is a fundamental mistake.
I wasn't here for Brexit but my impression was that a lot folks just wanted to say Stick It to the ruling classes. "we've had enough of experts" etc.
I acknowledge first of all that different people wanted it for different reasons and many had good reasons for supporting Brexit. But many more just wanted to say "screw you" to the establishment. See also: Donald Trump.
Maybe. I think a lot of people were hopeful things would change for the better. Don’t confuse what politicians said on telly with what people in the street actually felt. As you know I was, and am 100% for Brexit, and neither Boris nor Farage was articulating my thoughts at all.
I agree, Bettina - brilliant one-liners, LSO! My fave: "When aides told him there was an event to commemorate thousands of military aged men swarming onto beaches, he just naturally turned up in Dover." I spluttered my tea all over the place.. 😂
Ha ha Thanks Richard!
This was also good: 'at last the British peoples, from hedgerow to highland, from castle to council estate, have come together in pursuit of a common cause...the utter annihilation of the incompetent, useless, quisling, Tory party'. But the whole essay a bit long again!
Who's heard Dom Frisby's new song? 'Maybe we should have let the Nazis win'.
'https://www.frisbys.news/p/maybe-we-should-have-let-the-nazis?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1077379&post_id=145512640&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&r=8swye&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The main Parties draw policies at random from a bag, like bingo callers. They have the rapt attention of players hoping to win some of their fellow players’ money. Some go home with more than they paid to get in. The House keeps most of the money. Nothing of mutual benefit has been produced, just temporary distraction and general disappointment. It’s nothing more than consensual mugging.
Yes. I heard a thing from somewhere which I liked and will now garble, but basically. ‘If two people get together and vote to steal from a third, it doesn’t suddenly make it moral.’
Yes, LSO, it’s the main flaw in democracy, anticipated by Aristotle over 2000 years ago: it fails when the needy and greedy vote privileges for themselves.
Absolutely Richard. And cheers. Much appreciated.
You have to vote, or you don't get the right to complain. Even if it seems pointless.
I have seen articles that claim you only win from the centre ground, and articles that say the centre ground is the graveyard of this election. The former look at BBC Question Time and protests in London, and the latter look at Europe. It would seem that Europe is shuffling towards populism, and yet we are stuck with the same old choice between Labour and Labour lite. Why is this?
I have given a lot of thought to this, and I now know the answer. It's blindingly simple. It's "first past the post."
I know lots of people say FTFP is essential for strong government. I could make lots of criticisms of this. The last 14 years for example, where a big majority led to nothing at all. Or the 13 before, which led to disaster. My cynicism even makes me say that as almost all government intervention is bad, if none of them has the power to do anything, so much the better. Or point out that most of government now seems to happen in the ECHR, IMF, UN, OECD, Natural England, the Climate Change Committee and our courts. But all that misses the point.
FPTP is in the interests of Labour and the Conservatives to preserve, as they swap between more or less socialist failure. But even that is not the real issue. It's the thumping great entry barrier to any new party that's the problem. In the Netherlands the Farmers Party came from nothing in a breath. In the UK, UKIP got millions of votes and no seats. Furthermore, candidates for new parties have had real lives, and that gives the opportunity for good old MSM to look back at everything they have done in the past and dig something up. Plus Sunak did wrong foot Reform, and they had no time to come up with 600 candidates, so it's hardly surprising that there's more than a few fruit loops in there.
There is only one way forward, and that is a drubbing of the Conservative Party, a reverse takeover by Reform, an ejection of the "one nation" socialists, five years of utter disaster under Starmer, and a hope that there might still be something left of this great country after its ravaging by the likes of Starmer, Rayner, Reeves, Lammy, Streeting and the rest of the sorry crew. I don't like Galloway much, but his description of Starmer as a block of wood birds nest in, only capable of producing briefs with which to bore a judge to death was rather funny. What was not funny was Starmer saying that his family would only go to the NHS even if that meant a significantly poorer outcome. The Dalek peeped out from behind those spectacles. Such a person is utterly unfit to govern.
Hi Jeremy. Yes. I’m nervous of such a big change to our voting system. But I think you might be right. I don’t know the actual figures off the top of my head, but it was something like UKIP got 4 million votes and no seats. The SNP got something like 40 seats. So something isn’t working somewhere.
Despite the probable likelihood of Reform hoovering up several million votes with very little reward given that its votes will be well spread rather than concentrated, I remain totally opposed to PR. Yes, the attraction is obvious but it is superficial. It is the absolute guarantee of a permanent stitch up by the big establishment parties which will happily form coalitions as required to keep their “centrist”, technocratic elitist regime going forever.
The best compromise is the one that we rejected in a referendum in 2011, ie the Alternative Vote system. The great merit of this is that it provides the route by which new challenger parties can emerge without the wasted vote fear that keeps people voting LibLabCon. Everyone who truly supports UKIP, Reform or whoever can safely vote with their convictions knowing that, in the event that they are too small a cohort of people, their votes can then convert to the preferred (or least hated) establishment party option. But then we can find out the true strength of the new party’s appeal and they might even start winning loads of seats. Especially now when the incumbent parties are so widely despised. Alas, none of the main parties was really interested in this change (it was a sort of sop to the Lib Dems in the Coalition who really wanted a vote on PR) so the argument for it was never really made. Indeed, most people thought it was a referendum on PR and not surprisingly therefore rejected it. In my view, a terrible lost opportunity.
That’s my worry with any form of PR too. But maybe STV or AV system is better. Whatever voting system we get they’ll still try and stitch us up tho!
If my memory serves the turnout was dire as most people had no idea what it was about and couldn't be bothered to find out.
Which was the intention of David Cameron. The referendum ticked the box of the coalition agreement. He had no intention of promoting any change (nor had Labour) and it wasn’t what Clegg wanted.
So nobody campaigned on it and, surprise surprise, not many voted. A complete farce. But in my view then and to this day a terrible lost opportunity to improve our governance.
I expect Cameron hopped to repeat the trick with the EU Referendum. That didn’t turn out quite as planned.
I get that, and the situation in Scotland shows how PR can give small parties disproportionate influence (although FPTP did that in 2010 here). But my comment concluded with the fact that you can overcome FPTP from the inside, hence why Reform must take over the Conservative party. Unless someone goes to the ECHR and gets them to rule that FPTP is a violation of their human rights...
Ha ha. Maybe ECHR interference in democratically elected institutions is an infringement of voters’ human rights too..
I know that Reform in Canada did just such a thing, and so it is being held up as a template, but do you really think that is feasible here? I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, especially if there is a total Tory wipeout, but do you think it is likely? It seems a bit ‘this happens and then this happens and then this happens and then this happens’ to me. A bit like an accumulator at the betting shop. What do you think are the actual chances?
If it just ends up as the Conservative Party with some Reform policies, will the electorate believe them? I think we may have to have a different name, as well as a different PM, but in the end it may be worth it.
Yes. Definitely worth a try.
As might expect [Thanks LSO for the mention!), I would dispute your first sentence. By voting you accept loser’s consent, you might complain, but fundamentally you took part and accept by default the outcome. The incumbent parties use this to justify their position - a high turn out indicates voters are content with what is on offer. What is actually on offer are two sides of the same coin, whoever wins nothing will change. My argument is that with the current situation (fptp favouring the two faces of the uniparty, no real representation of the voters views), not voting is the only meaningful way to signal you are not consenting to the outcome or accept the legitimacy of what has become of our democracy. That said, I think we are both arguing for the same outcome - the replacement of this faux democracy with something that truly engages with and expresses the beliefs of the voters, not just a rubber stamp exercise for a bunch of identikit elites.
An interesting viewpoint, but I lean to the view that as citizens of this country, we accept the constitution we live under, and that constitution requires a choice to be made every 5 years or less to avoid dictatorship. Whilst I wholly agree that all the parties bar Reform are socialists, so we don't really have a choice, that doesn't change the fact that democracy was hard fought for, and we should vote. I would add that the last politician I voted for was Margaret Thatcher in 1987. All votes since have merely been against the rest.
Plus, you never know, your vote might matter. People buy lottery tickets every week for the chance to win millions, and your vote has more chance of counting than that.
I find myself agreeing with both you and P Jeremy. I think instinctively I would finally err with you. If only from a’ use it or lose it’ angle. I always think how kids are not taught about stock and shares, because ‘you know, it’s not for you’. I do think they would love us not to vote. They tried to suggest during Brexit that only ‘clever people’ (like them) should have the vote. So if they are scared of us having the franchise it probably still has value. But I also think P is right that sometimes the only way to make your point is to kick over the table.
But is not voting, or spoiling the vote, really doing that? I could take the simple view, as I suspect many do, that there is little chance of your vote actually being the one that matters (like the Monty Python sketch and the split in the silly vote), but I just feel a social obligation to vote.
I fully understand the sentiment. Many people have struggled to ensure we have the vote, some have died. I have spent many elections, local and National either voting for the least worst option, as a protest vote or even spoiling the ballot paper. Also, I agree that a democratic constitution is a precious thing in this world, and frankly an historical rarity. My contention is that since the 1960s, which I think was in retrospect a high point of actual democracy in this country (way before I could vote though), the elite have fought back to regain control of the system. The infiltration of both Conservatives and Labour to turn both into fully owned institutions of the ‘Oxbridge class’. The removal of politicians from any other source, apart from the odd token representative to wheel out whenever needed. The growth of quangos to remove power from democratic institutions to bodies stuffed with elites, a function that the EU serves at a pan-European level. The use of ‘degree only’ entry to many jobs where it is clearly overkill to control who can get these jobs. I fear the elite have subverted the institutions to remove the impact of democracy, to effectively nullify our vote. I fear they have made getting the change needed extremely difficult. But hopefully between those of us who actively disengage from this broken system, to those who register their feelings through a protest vote, we may find a way to force the required changes through democratic means, through opening up the space for one or more new parties to break through the fptp system and replace the uniparty.
One the one hand, you have the two giant parties, Labour and Conservative, each with its massive party apparatus, stream of donations, a rigid process to let only the "right" potential candidates in, and a career path that takes them into Parliament without the slightest risk, or glimpse of the real world. Like robots, they march into their seats and nothing changes.
On the other hand, you have the disrupters, with little or no money, with seasoned campaigners who have history, so vulnerable to MSM "investigations," no real infrastructure, and the constant risk of letting in people who turn out to be complete PR nightmares.
In a PR scenario, in countries with less blinkered MSM, a small party can start with one key policy, win votes, and build from that base, as the Farmers party has in the Netherlands. It may take some time, but they will get experience, infrastructure and donations. When that happens here, as with UKIP in 2015, they get 1 seat for 12.6% of the vote, and Plaid got 3 seats for 0.5% of the vote.
That is why I say FPTP can only be breached from the inside, by turning the Conservative Party into a centre right party, using the mechanism of a big number of Reform votes. Even those as stupid as Conservative Central office will surely see that if Reform takes more votes than the Conservatives, FPTP will doom us to permanent socialism unless they take the centre right ground and merge.
Lots of points to agree with here. I do think it's a problem that we have so many professional politicians who did PPE at Oxbridge. More diversity of backgrounds would be better. I also agree that an electoral system that allows small parties to break through would be better. STR would be my favourite.
I only half agree on the degrees-for-everyone thing. I just blogged about it actually and have Episode Two in the works. I agree it's wrong that politicians in the 90s and onwards encouraged people to get degrees who didn't need to get degrees but I don't think it's about controlling or keeping down the rest. I think degrees have just become a cheap way for employers to cherry pick their employees. They don't really need someone with a degree (in most cases) but the certificate acts like a cheap competency test.
Last point: I read a blog today that argued that there are a lot of decision that are better removed from politicians — because the popular choice is often the worst choice but the politicians would promise it anyway to win an election. Setting interest rates over here, is an example; but also the way that Americans elect their judges and seem doomed to vote for the worst judges imaginable.
I agree wholeheartedly with this P.
I think even voting for Count Binface or the Greens when they have no chance of winning expresses your dissatisfaction better than not voting. Not voting just looks like you are too lazy or you don't care.
Tragedy is whatever way you go can and will be twisted by politicians as acceptance of their divine right to rule. I’ve done the protest/ballot spoiling approach in the past and all that happens is they will say they have won their majority on the back of a more than 50% turnout so they are a legitimate Government. Yes, if you don’t vote the claim will be that you are apathetic. My argument though is that by participating, you agree to be bound by one of Democracy’s core principles, losers consent. I’ve reached a point that I refuse to give that in the sham elections we’re now facing.
How about the system like in Australia where it is a legal requirement to vote but you can spoil your paper to nullify it?
I think this is a very fair position P. I maybe just feel I should vote for something rather than nothing. Though I appreciate that you are characterising that ‘nothing’ as a message with value of its own. I was very happy to vote for Amy Gallagher in the London mayoral election, even though she had zero chance of winning, for instance.
Totally agree. I wouldn't worry about the quality of candidates in any party however - they are simply lobby fodder in the Commons and even in a governing party's Cabinet they do as they're told. The Blob runs everything anyway.
I would guess that the only people in favour of FPTP are in the party that is currently in government.
I think Sunak will join Clegg at Facebook.
I was saying this morning that isn't it hilarious that Europe is lurching to the Right and we're about to vote in a Hard Left Labour party. Maybe we should have stayed in the EU lol. #voteReform
What makes you think the Labour Party is hard left?
Kneels to BLM.
Loves Green policies.
They’re into all the gender bullshit.
Need I go on?
I don't think green policies or gender bullshit or kneeling for BLM are hard left policies. It's perfectly possible to oppose all of those policies* and still be on left.
Besides, the BLM stuff doesn't affect anything in this country and the gender stuff is past its peak. It will be forgotten soon.
That's not the view of Labour's position by people like Andrew Doyle.
Hey Ian. Yes and I’d agree with Doyle that it’s not going anywhere. Too many talentless scolds are making too much money, and gaining too much power from it, to let it go now.
But isn’t Ragged correct? Being left wing doesn’t make you woke. It just means that it’s more likely that you are. Paul Embery, Claire Fox and Rosie Duffield are all of the left. But they have each stood up to this stuff. Sometimes at great personal cost.
Indeed. I was rather addressing his comment about it going away. If Labour get in (see the article by Kaufman in The Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-illiberal-implications-of-labours-manifesto/) then expect Woke on steroids.
Excellent post LSO! One of your best yet! 👏🏼👏🏼 Basically, we’re all doomed really aren’t we?! We may as well vote Reform then! I’m looking forward to lighting the blue touch paper, standing back, and seeing what happens!! 😁
Thanks Ady. Much appreciated. Ha ha. There’s no more of a ‘Dad’ Image in my mind than my own Dad overseeing our garden firework display in the 1970s. Happy Days. ‘Come to Woolworths and buy your seasonal explosives. Follow the safety rules and you probably won’t be blinded!’
Thanks for the laughs LSO! I am willing to wager, come 5th July, Sunak will be in California working for the Tony Blair Institute, with the rest of the lizard people.
Ha yes! He’ll be banging down the WEF door. I actually cut a bit about Klaus Schwab and Tony Blair, but do you really think they’d want a loser like Rishi?
They took Jacinda Ardern. Frankly, Sunak has never been interested in Britain or its people. PM was a springboard to ‘better things’ and his wife has been explicit publicly they are leaving when he is done. Which he is.
Ha ha.
That’s about the most damming indictment I’ve ever heard.
‘How crap was it really?’
‘Well, they took Jacinda Ardern.’
Starmer is no stranger to Davos, having been invited in 2023 to address the Forum. In January 2023, he was asked by a journalist to choose between "Davos" (i.e. the WEF) and "Westminster" to which he replied "Davos".
SPIKED magazine had an excellent article on him recently -
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/09/keir-starmer-the-making-of-an-arch-technocrat/?utm_source=spiked+long-reads&utm_campaign=9fca033e3b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_06_09_06_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-9fca033e3b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Hi LSO, another brilliant, if darkly humorous, article that again captures the situation we face. I’m not sure if it is wishful thinking, but I sense this is different to 1997. Then the Tories were hated and there was a desire to turf them out. But it feels different now. Defeat is not enough, it’s almost become personal and only total political annihilation will do. Not sure if you that’s what you see also.
Thank you for capturing a much more succinct expression of my views!
Thanks P. Yes. It feels personal. I think people genuinely feel betrayed. I know I do. Mainly over the wasted opportunity of Brexit in my case I think. And then I remember the lockdowns, and then and then…. It’s a long list.
Thanks for sharing them in the first place. It was a great point well worth repeating.
Very good. Very good. I laughed out loud so much I lost count at 27.
My only issue is that you suggested the election as kind of boring. To the contrary! This is the most significant election of my lifetime — maybe even since 1922 when the Liberals were wiped out. The election result might be a foregone conclusion but that's just how elections work in our system. They are boring until one party starts to get a bit of a lead: slowly at first, and then suddenly, all at once.
It would change our politics forever if the tories get wiped out. As I've said before, I predict that if the tories go away, Labour will split soon after into the boring centrists that you hate and the fanatical progressives who you hate with a passion. But, more importantly, it will open up the field for other parties to jump in and maybe even be contenders when all the old parties lie broken on the floor of the House. It's true that Starmer is not going to change the electoral system that gave him 400 seats but he might not get a choice if the new Progressive Half of Labour Party and the Greens and Reform and Lib Dems have any say.
"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is…"
We live in exciting times!
At the very least, you'll finally have an answer to the question "But what benefits did Brexit actually bring?" It destroyed the Tory Party. Hoorah!
Thanks! Yes. Maybe my ‘it’s all too boring’ was more a useful comic conceit than anything Ragged.
I am so intrigued to see if your long term prediction of a Labour split will come true. I maintain that like hyenas on a dead wildebeest they will just fight over the corpse of Britain, jockeying for position and potentially easing Starmer out at some point before replacing him with their own populist. Maybe Rayner. Is that a nuts idea? Can’t see how Libs and Greens etc can gang up on Starmer if he has such a massive majority. But it’s all speculation. Exciting times indeed.
Ha ha finally we both find some worth in Brexit. Also. Thanks for the other thing. But I maintain we probably just live in separate wings of the same house.
They will split into super-progressive, TRA, DEI, firebomb-Barclays lefties and the serious wing. The LibDems will join them.
☕🙌
"It destroyed the Tory Party." No, they destroyed themselves!
Funny as always even when we have nothing to laugh about. I'll buy you a cuppa
I see that. Thanks so much Elizabeth. At least you have the park and I get the canal. I think they are safe for now.
I believe this is by design not by accident. It’s Starmer’s time and they both know it. Sunak has accelerated his own demise.
Thanks for another great take.
Thanks Julie. Yes. The tide is definitely flowing that way. Just as it’s going the other way in Europe.
The culture wars are coming.
Hope not Julie. Revolutions of any stripe tend to leave the people at the bottom worse off while they shuffle the bosses about at the top. The situation in the US is terrifying I think-kangaroo courts are celebrated, democracy is becoming something only ‘the good people’ should get to enjoy. I hope we can avoid the worst of that.
Coming? They’re already here. That’s why the NHS is destroying the words women and mother from their records etc.
I think it will hot up ever more.
“….and the Channel 4 Election Night coverage, a show I have worked on during pretty much every election night since 2010…”. Ooh, that’s a tantalising snippet! Would you care to elaborate a little? You must have been a pariah in the C4 world of very High Status Opinions!
Not at all. People are pretty decent, but it is a very left leaning world. I remember in 2015 being the only one on the production team who wasn’t distraught at the Tory majority, Ed Milliband was the clear favourite! I kept my head down!
More standup routine than political satire. And therein it's value, and my compliment. Bravo 👋
Thanks Damien. I think. 🤔
I would be interested in reading your story. I like horror stories, and I've also had an idea for a spy story set in a near-future world that has divided between those who wear masks and those who do not, in a sort of Cold War style.
Thanks Punk. That sounds like fun. Oh hang on. Having lived through the lockdown nonsense, not exactly fun.
That won't work because you will know who is on your side and who isn't. Oh wait, that's like Zombie movies. Doh, always preferred Invasion of the Body Snatchers anyway
I always felt that last shot with doppelgänger Donald Sutherland pointing out the real human and sort of screaming, was a brilliant metaphor/meme for cancel culture.
Yeah, it kind of boils down to libertarianism versus authoritarianism in the end which is a well trodden path. As a satire it wouldn't be very subtle. But Le Carre and Len Deighton always managed to write good stories even though we knew who the bad guys were. I could also work in some mystery stuff that might be supernatural or not. I also like cyberpunk and stories told at street level, where an innocent person gets mixed up in high powered stuff (like North by North West). There are various ways of approaching it.
Jes' kiddin'. Good luck and I will proof for free?
I wish I could figure out how substack actually works, I'd like to start a sub-subject on something here.
I think you have Ray. We could call it Ray’s Sub Subject.
So damn confusing. Just tried to write something, dunno if I did it right. Anyway, one of my more dangerous opinions -- we work *with* the baloney.
Great post. As others have said, too many fabulous one liners to praise them all.
I seem to have found you and Ragged Clown on the same day. Intelligent humorous analysis from opposite poles. A rare treat.
I will probably also vote Reform as a protest vote. There seems to be an assumption that as a right wing party it will only take votes from the Tories. Do right and left mean anything anymore? Surely much of its agenda (and leader) will appeal to the red wall voters who deserted Labour in 2019?
Thanks for coming Martin. Delighted you found us.
It’s interesting isn’t it? It seems that Red Wall voters are going back to Labour, while betrayed Tories like me are choosing Reform, if only as a super charged protest vote. I agree with you about right and left. The party with the manifesto which seems most in tune with the electorate’s stated preferences, left on economy, right on cultural issues, is the SDP. But they are a tiny fringe party at the moment. But there does seem to be a huge opportunity in that political space. ATB.
Hilarious. Haven't laughed so heartily since Blair got in in 1997. It's like accelerating towards a black hole in a spaceship together with LibLabCon waiting to be torn apart by tidal forces when you know that the end will be so fast that your brain will not register it before it is vapourised. and they are screaming because they don't know. I will definitely come back when the election is over. In the meantime I've got some other things to do. Cheers.
Thanks JS! Good luck with your other stuff.