This is where Starmer's strategy of making himself as bland and dull as possible pays off, people might be uninspired by him but absolutely no one fears him being PM. They are still behaving as if they are facing Corbyn, they have absolutely no idea what the electorate is thinking.
Oh yes. What we'd all give for a return to the honourable, morally superior days of Labour under Blair and Brown. Keith Vaz and cash for passports, the adviser who called 9/11 "a very good day to get out anything we want to bury", Mandelson being forced to resign from the cabinet not once but twice before being given a cushy job as an EU Commissioner, the dodgy dossier that led to war in Iraq, David Kelly's subsequent suicide, all those expense claims, Gordon Brown being recorded calling Gillian Duffy a "bigoted woman" before being forced to publicly apologise. Truly they were golden days.
I disagree with this completely. I first heard Tice on a podcast, a year or two ago and he came across extremely well. This was long before Farage etc was involved and the party was labelled far-right. The media attention and shouting the loudest doesn’t have anything to do with it for me. I think they genuinely have the best ideas.
So the day has arrived. Am counting votes later, 2 constituencies, should be finished by 8am tomorrow morning. The more votes the better. Just hope as many people as possible get out and vote even if just a protest vote and a spoilt paper. Have a say, the time is now.
My vote booth couldn't be closer. Literally 2 min walk. Really intrigued to see what happens. I'll be voting Lib Dem as they have a very real chance of getting in here.
Genuinely interested in what these ideas are. I have only seen broad election ambitions and nothing that would convince me they had any ideas how to make any of it work. All I see are huge expenses along tax cuts. It is all very magic money tree.
Oh absolutely. It’s pretty much a Green Party manifesto - completely uncosted and unviable. The sort of thing you only propose if you don’t expect to have to implement it
Yep it is like Sports Republic saying that if we win the Champions League in the next 3 years they will invest £1 billion in the club and bring in Mbappe.
This is fair. The smaller parties can always be more fanciful. Although to be fair a new government can always resort to some variation on that old classic "Now we've been elected and had a chance to look at the books for ourselves it's all much worse than we thought so we're going to have to change our plans." I won't be at all surprised if we hear that in the next few weeks.
Labour definitely can't win with you. They have avoided making any big promises because of the financial situation of the country but you still think they will renege on the promises they didn't even make...
That's not really about Labour. It's a standard thing any new government might say. I can't specifically remember but the Con/Lib lot probably did it 2010, helped by the "there's no money left" note.
I think he thinks they will renege on the “we won’t raise income tax, NI or VAT” part if the finances really are that bad But if anyone thinks them raising things like corporation tax , inheritance or council tax then they haven’t been paying attention. Those seem to be specifically on the table
If "there's no money left" reflects national debt, then despite all those years of austerity, I imagine the Tories will leave a note saying: "You guys are ****ed".
I am pro-taxation, pro-society and totally against allowing the rich any loophole to protect their excessive assets. Have at it!
All new governments spout the same; it’s a blame game which they believe gives them some tolerances. Personally, I detest it.
Possibly, but I don't know that things like that are imminent. Maybe in the longer term if (when) they find things they expect to raise money (like VAT on school fees) don't work. But as you say they've left themselves some room to change those other taxes. I think the manifesto talks about changes to inheritance tax, I'd say changes (possibly quite radical changes) to council tax are quite likely along with some sort of tax on savings, potentially including pensions. The manifesto talks about "a review of the pensions landscape" while Starmer promised not to tax "working people" and was asked on LBC what he meant by "working people". His answer was essentially that "working people" means people without savings.
