Off Topic Political Debate

It doesn't matter if it is anti-semitism in the Labour party, or Islamaphobia in the Conservative Party, it is all bad for society. Many people see extreme views and cotton on to them without a second thought. One MP died at the hands of a man who had been brain washed by an extreme group, and there are plenty of people who want to see the country broken up. It doesn't help when both parties say they will take action, but in effect do nothing.

 

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This is a picture of Stephen Smith. Smith had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis and an enlarged prostate that left him barely able to walk and in pain, but regardless he was found “fit for work” and told to look for a job. It took a year for Smith’s benefits to be reinstated. To get them, at the end of last year the 64-year-old was forced to obtain a pass to discharge himself from hospital; ravaged with pneumonia, he had to leave his bed to attend a tribunal and fight his case. In cases such as Stephen Smiths we are witnessing acts of large-scale moral bankruptcy, enacted by privileged politicians who have outright disdain for people who dare to need the support of the state. It is time the politicians responsible were called to account, and with them the private companies that are profiting from human suffering. Stephen Smith has now died.

 

Nothing short of murder by the state in my book. The people who make these decisions need to be held to account, right through to ministerial level. Totally unacceptable.

 

A long night out for my son-in-law who will act as the returning officer in the local council elections. He is expecting a low turn out of voters that should get him home earlier, but as he was telling me it becomes difficult to choose who to elect when their power is so curtailed by central government. As he says, blaming a district council and the members of whatever party for closing down facilities is somewhat unfair when the government has withdrawn funding.

 

yep , as a local councillor all you can do is try and help your constituents and alleviate some of the worst effects of austerity , people often feel helpless faced with bureaucracy, as a councillor you can assist and sometimes get a positive outcome for individuals, but collectively we are witnessing the dismantling of civic society / welfare state due to crude ideology , many people will be suffering unnecessarily as a result .
To me , these barstewards are evil .

 

You are spot on. As someone involved for a long time with local government in Northamptonshire, I look on with horror at what has happened there. And where are the local MPs such as Ledsome and Bone when the areas that elect them to Westminster need them most? Posturing over Brexit and silent on local matters. Yet still people turn out to vote for the party despite the clear and obvious failures. I have known very good Tory councillors who speak their minds, but also some who don't actually seem to know what day of the week it is. It becomes very difficult when a council has an overwhelming number of councillors from one party against those who want to put forward a different option. I also have deep distrust of the cabinet system that has developed over the years. A few well paid people can tell the bulk of the council what they should vote for, good or bad. To me the country over the past two or three years has become a one issue place, and money that could have been wisely used on decent, but not extravagant services, has been wasted by a totally incompetent bunch of MPs from both main parties.

 

Boris Johnson (Conservative) tweeted :
I just voted Conservative in the local elections. Make sure you do too! You’ve got two hours left to get out and vote!

Guess who was telling porkies again. There were no elections in London today. He deleted it when he was told that he could not have voted. The Tory choice for next PM?

 

Good night for Lib Dems, Greens and Independants...

 

They are just being used as a temporary protest vote, don't read too much into it.

 

I see the mouthpiece of the tory right has returned.. What a shame as everything was so peaceful, friendly and non confrontational on these boards...

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For the Tories to lose 1,320 councillors and 44 councils shows just how low the party has sunk. The Labour party should have done better, but their losses are tiny by comparison. The strange thing is that many of the votes taken from these two parties have gone to Libdems and Greens, both of them clearly remainers. Despite this surge against leaving, something that the polls have been saying for months now, both of the two parties that have suffered the losses are still saying they need to push on with it. It is the local councils that will have to pick up the pieces with reduced central funding, money that is being spent on failed ferry contracts, hiring warehousing to stockpile goods etc. that are not needed. Will the government change course now, because as sure as eggs are eggs, they will take another beating, probably worse than this one, in the EU elections.

 

Protesting against what? The will of the people, perhaps?

 

Since the beginning of the year the gap between leave and remain has accelerated. Taking the aggregated results from all the polls into the one poll of polls, you now have remain on 56% and leave on 39%. Individual polls have a much wider gap, 65% remain to 33% leave. (Panelbase) or 57% remain to 42% leave, (ComRes). This is no longer close, but a genuine division. This confirms what was seen in the Local elections on Thursday, that support for the leave parties is way down, and people have taken it out on them in the only way open to them. What might have been the "will of the people" three years ago has changed. The flat earthers still cling to the referendum, and by trying to force their will on the population are the anti-democrats in our midst.

 

The results in the local and European elections were produced by leavers disgusted by the shenanigans of the remain politicians thwarting the will of the people as decided by the official referendum.
It now looks likely that eurosceptic parties will win in both the UK, France and several other EU member states.
.

 

So maybe you can explain why so many voters deserted the two main parties by going to the Liberals and the Greens ie. the 2 unequivocal remain parties ?

 

So as you are disgusted with your own party leadership as you have told us many times, I guess you must have voted for the Greens.

 

No, I voted Conservative the other night as the Tories are clearly the best political party to manage local affairs as well as national affairs. I, along with many millions of Tory supporters, will be voting for the Brexit Party in the European elections. This will add to the general surge across Europe against the present set up in Brussels.
We will all return to vote Conservative at the next general election to ensure that Tories, the natural party of government, continues to remain in power.

The Lib Dems and other assorted oddballs elected this week will be out the next time.

 

they didn't, the 'disgusted' leavers simply stayed at home.

 

And many spoiled their voting papers indicating that they were not happy with the options available, ie they were telling the Tory's and Labour they were not impressed at the moment but they could not bring themselves to vote for the alternatives.

Personally I think the local elections are reflecting the mood of the people concerning the antics of parliament failing in implement a brexit of any kind, with many trying hard to stop it happening at all, despite the referendum result.

It is sad that national politics is affecting the local elections as, as some of you have said, we should be voting on local governance and issues. We now have local councils full of socialist counsellors, wrecking havoc without any meaningful opposition.

 

By 'full of socialist counsellors' do you mean the Lib Dems or the Greens, who were the real winners of the day ? Has British politics really slipped so far to the right that anything apart from fully deregulated Thatcherite economics can be classified as socialist ?