It would be great if someone could raise the erosion of wages in the past four decades. Back in the bad old 70's people working in the state sector werer given pay rises to compensate for the rise in the cost of living. Since those wonderful days, the wage for many has been slowly eroded with living costs far outstriping wages. If I was to be the next PM, I would attend to this aspect first before considering tax cuts. There are parallels with the past. In the mid-19th century, coalminers were given a good wage, but any increases afterwards did not match rises elsewhere hence the strikes in the industry in the early part of the 20th century. When will the British public learn that the Tories are not on their side?
Tugenhadt the latest to go. Will be interesting to see who he puts his votes and support to. Suspect it'll be Rishi in return for a place in the cabinet.
Well, he's a comical figure I'll give you that. I've got no beef with you Archers. You're a paid up member of the party, I respect your loyalty but we're not going to agree on this one. We could keep this going but I'd rather not fall out with you. The other two yesterday are a different matter.
With the ****storm of the leadership contest likely to alienate more voters than it attracts, it's clearly time to raise the stakes. A movement to encourage Tory members to write in Johnson's name on their ballot papers wouldn't surprise me in the least.
That would probably be a good thing as I doubt there would be write in's allowed and so it would siphon support away from the candidate most likely to carry on in a similar way to Johnson (Truss I assume)
With Tugendhat gone they are stuffed. He was the only one who could possibly have led to a Tory revival. Not one of the remaining candidates has even the slightest hint of a set of cogent beliefs. All of them are solely driven by a desire for power and will say anything at all to get it. The only thing that have in common now is to divide the population with their dreary anti-refugee, anti-liberal nauseous attempt to split the populace. They scare people with refugees, they scare people with anti-anyone-who-isn't-them fear mongering. The Tory party used to have beliefs. They used to have a clue about how to get where they wanted to be. They used to love the individual; now they want everyone either to be in their tribe or to be classed as an enemy of the country. I used to vote for them, for heaven's sake. But this pitiful populist 'hate anyone who isn't like you so I can have my moment of power' is all they have left. What a moral collapse we are witnessing. Vin
Some assumptions: Truss or Sunak win to become the next leader. It is safe to assume they will be the top two). It seems like they will bitterly maneuver against each other for the rest of the summer (insane to let the contest go on as long as planned - I wonder if they will try and change the rules part way through? Then we assume that they lead the Tories to a defeat in the next election - the economy doesn't seem like it is getting better and they are determined to ignore the cost of living crisis (seriously - Truss suggested lowering corporation tax as a response to the cost of living crisis? How? I guess she still thinks trickle down works). When I say defeat I mean - unable to form a government. Labour won't get an outright majority Assuming one of the above has lasted until said election (Truss could easily trigger a no confidence due to staggering incompetence and no charisma to mask it like BoJo) then they would resign on a defeat You then get a situation where they need a new leader. Most of the candidates this time round are just chancers with no stomach for being a leader of the opposition. This is especially true (in my opinion) of the two most likely to be on the final ballot. So I would expect the top two choices next time (albeit who knows who could crop up in the meantime) to be Tugendhat and Badenoch. If they choose the former they might come back. The latter and it would seem like they veer off into a wacky direction and be out of power for a while. As previously discussed she is mostly all about culture war stuff that doesn't resonate as much here as it does in the USA (but might in a few years time). But making political predictions is a fools game. Maybe the MPs and then members will be a little more sensible with an opposition choice? They were with Cameron at least. But weren't a couple of times before that I wonder if there is any potential new leader that would see some of the people booted out by Boris come back? Not that many would want to but someone like Rory Stewart might. Not under Truss of course.
Or is there any chance that a party could emerge from nowhere and plunge itself into the centre ground, a la Macron in France? Whatever happens, the new leader will add further fuel to the Scottish demand for independence.
What would the centre ground be in the current climate? France seemed to have more extremes on each end and a different electoral system to allow that to actually be possible. Corbyn was considered too left. The current labour government is not that left by international standards. Aren't the Lib Dems in between the two main parties? Brexit and also individual nationalist parties complicate our system a little more. And FPTP reduces the chance of a new party rising to seize any kind of middle ground to virtually zero
Youe last sentence is what we all want. The key is getting Labour to support the concept. Or is it just about power with them as well? This is where countries like Denamark and Germany are strong where coalitions are formed and Governments are created for the good of the people/
You may receive your wish of a new party sooner than you think... Zoom in on the image for the story. That'd certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Labour would be foolish not to support electoral reform. They should put it in their manifesto so that a referendum isn’t even needed but the problem I imagine is that it would become an attack line “you can’t win the *proper* way so you want to change the rules”. Which is insane because a change would be all about appealing to an actual majority but someone people will be convinced to believe the opposite it true (it happened once before)
That is quite amusing. I don’t think Boris would go for it. Too much hard work with too little chance of success. In FPTP such a party would basically destroy the Tory party but probably not win many seats of it’s own. And by destroy it could largely wipe them out. Which might be the point come to think of it. It would split off the extra red wall voters he won - handing it all back to labour most likely. It would also split a bunch of narrower margin heartland seats - handing them to the Lib Dems. Such a third party wouldn’t win his own seat - new or current boundaries. It would be another party that needs electoral reform It would do to the conservatives in England what they snp did for labour in Scotland. There is a reason Farage stood down his candidates in 2019