Off Topic Politics Thread

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It'sOnlyAGame said:
I think it's a pity that there is no hard left party, not because I want one in power but because there should be a comprehensive choice for people where to cast their votes. As it is at the moment, anyone with harder left views has to look to the nutjobs in the Green Party to represent them. In my view the Greens should have stayed as an environmental pressure group and the Lib Dems should just pack it in.
Extreme parties tend to keep the centre left/right on their toes enough to force changes they wouldn't normally make, as we see now with Reform. The only problem is that although the general public don't want extreme parties in power, in times of unrest, they will turn to them if they feel ignored. Again, as we see now with Reform.
If Reform get voted in at the next GE the blame will lie fair and square with both the centre left/right parties. The government for not listening to and acting on public concerns, and the opposition for not giving the voters an attractive alternative.

Also, whenever a Conservative MP defects to Reform it is usually met with jeers aimed at the failing Tory Party, but I think to the Farage haters it should be viewed with concern.
It's pretty clear that there will be a new government after the next GE but despite Reform's current popularity what may stop them is an image of a dysfunctional group of chancers. But every defection weakens the (relatively) moderate Tories, gives strength to the more extreme Reform and offers them an even better chance of success at the next GE. Whatever you think of the last government, to the normally Tory voting electorate, Reform will appeal to them more with familiar faces and credible politicians (credible compared to the group of chancers mentioned above).
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I think the problem lies in the political blob not understanding that even with the overton window moving more and more left of where it was over the past 30 years ,and yes that was pretty much representative of the voterbase as a whole, that does not equate to the voters being more and more left!

If the Overton window had remained static and the voterbase moved bit by bit left then yes, there is a change there but if the whole of politics is moving more and more that way as well then that centre right tendency is still a centre right tendency because politics represented pretty much the public mood swing.

Its not so much the Overton window moving back right now. People are still pretty much in the same place in general as they were 10 years ago. Its just there is a bit more pushback against some of the "culture wars" stuff and a frustration at politicians ignoring a lot of concerns to the point that everything is shut down as if the country is overrun by far right fascists when it isn't..........you wouldn't think it wasn't though by the way the politicos and their supporters and the legacy media go on. Every narrative is that any concern about immigration = wanting deportations and fascist beliefs and they spend a lot of time banging on about GB News which gets an average 86k watchers through the day which in the grand scheme of things is teeny tiny but commands a massive amount of the political machine (including guardianista and commentariat) time as if it was some behemoth BBC challenger that half the country is watching!.

86k is like Lincoln (constituency not the expanding greater Lincoln!) It is 0.12% of the country! but it is constantly talked about as if it were THE enemy!

What no-one seems to talk about is that the BBC put BBC News on all through the night until BBC breakfast starts........which is pretty much BBC News anyway and then BBC2 take BBC news though the morning but these are not included in the news channel numbers! BBC Breakfast for example gets over 6 million viewers!

This constant talk up of the threat of GB News' fraction of a precent share ignores just how many people are watching BBC News on their main 2 channels! Even Newsnight's numbers are double GB News average!

They should spend less time banging on about GB News, less time trying to present the country as being a full on racist cesspit and spend a lot more time trying to actually represent the normal folks and do good policy!
 
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John Crace's disillusionment with the Labour government shared by many expected by more than a few.
"I feel I should probably start with an apology. A few days after the 2024 general election, I wrote that it felt as if the grownups were back in charge. It wasn’t as if I was carried away by the vision of Keir Starmer or the charisma of Rachel Reeves. More that I felt we had regained a basic level of competence. That politics would become business as usual rather than the breathless psychodrama of the past 10 years. You could go to bed at night relatively confident that the country would be more or less recognisable when you woke up. There would be no more mad people doing mad things as we raced through five or six news cycles in the course of a couple of hours.
And part of me was a little concerned. Because what is good for economic stability and social justice isn’t necessarily good for a sketch writer. Dull, well-intentioned politicians putting in place dull, well-intentioned policies, and a government that is ticking over more or less OK, do not necessarily make for great entertainment. So what would I write about?

It turns out that I needn’t have worried.

Read on here. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/19/john-crace-on-how-labour-shattered-his-expectations His description of what's posing as an opposition and Farage's attempt to become a mainline politician later in the piece.
 
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Led by Donkeys has Anna Ford narrating the real BBC bias story and the part Robbie Gibb played in it. Gibb describes himself as a Thatcherite Conservative", stated that he owned a 100 per cent holding in Jewish Chronicle on his BBC register of interests and was an editorial advisor for GB news prior to its launch in 2021. No bias there then.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h5kF1W-22V8
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StJabbo1 said:
John Crace's disillusionment with the Labour government shared by many expected by more than a few.
"I feel I should probably start with an apology. A few days after the 2024 general election, I wrote that it felt as if the grownups were back in charge. It wasn’t as if I was carried away by the vision of Keir Starmer or the charisma of Rachel Reeves. More that I felt we had regained a basic level of competence. That politics would become business as usual rather than the breathless psychodrama of the past 10 years. You could go to bed at night relatively confident that the country would be more or less recognisable when you woke up. There would be no more mad people doing mad things as we raced through five or six news cycles in the course of a couple of hours.
And part of me was a little concerned. Because what is good for economic stability and social justice isn’t necessarily good for a sketch writer. Dull, well-intentioned politicians putting in place dull, well-intentioned policies, and a government that is ticking over more or less OK, do not necessarily make for great entertainment. So what would I write about?

It turns out that I needn’t have worried.

Read on here. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/19/john-crace-on-how-labour-shattered-his-expectations His description of what's posing as an opposition and Farage's attempt to become a mainline politician later in the piece.
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That is a good article but i wonder qhethet Badenoch , Starmer or Farage will be around in 12 months time. I can see Starmer going after the local elections and feel Badenoch will get the boot too. Farage is interesting. The press is starting to be more critical and the performance of Reform councils offers hope that people are starting to realise they are incompetent.
 
Ian Thumwood said:
That is a good article but i wonder qhethet Badenoch , Starmer or Farage will be around in 12 months time. I can see Starmer going after the local elections and feel Badenoch will get the boot too. Farage is interesting. The press is starting to be more critical and the performance of Reform councils offers hope that people are starting to realise they are incompetent.
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Seems you are still reading press in your sleepy dreams! Starmer is hanging on by his nails already. The only way Starmer lasts until the local elections is if somehow the other "ambitious" contenders can be stopped from jumping before Burnham has a chance to get in the house!

The reason for what we see now is because some of those ambitious people know they cannot wait if they want the job for themselves/their man/woman!

Badenoch most likely will be gone but not because of poor performance. Because she was not the Tory MPs pick, she was a member's pick! Like Boris who they were gunning for from day1 and even a majority didn't stop them, they have been internally gunning for her since day1. Predictable but like all politicians they think they know better than the public ;)

Both Labour and Tory are destroying themselves from within, leaking attacks and briefings out from within and trying to blame the other side's press for it. lol.

Everything that the Telegraph is suddenly getting is not from them upping their game. Its because the left are feeding them leaks to take hits at each other and ease their pathway to the top :D

Politicians being politicians :D
 
Ian Thumwood said:
I always thought Nicola Sturgeon was the expert at playing politics. Boris was no match for her.
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Nicola Sturgeon was one of the worst abusers of the twitter soundbite that people are hating on now! And while Boris was felled by those around him........She was felled by herself. lol! Funny how you think she was expert at playing politics now. I could understand people thinking that when she was still in but now? laughable.

Is she your pick for new Labour leader?
 
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Farges mate …..sorry not mate, never heard off or met him mate has been sentenced to 10.5 years.
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saintrichie123 said:
Farges mate …..sorry not mate, never heard off or met him mate has been sentenced to 10.5 years.
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This needs to be given massive coverage and Farage needs to be harassed day and night about it as any other serious party leader would be.

I'd be surprised if this existed in isolation.
 
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ImpSaint said:
Nicola Sturgeon was one of the worst abusers of the twitter soundbite that people are hating on now! And while Boris was felled by those around him........She was felled by herself. lol! Funny how you think she was expert at playing politics now. I could understand people thinking that when she was still in but now? laughable.

Is she your pick for new Labour leader?
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I think Sturgeon was a really strong leader but I was referring to her as a politician in the cynical sense. She rang rings around Boris but , as you said, she ultimately shot herself in the foot with the gender identity business.

I just feel she could have delivered independence had she been in power instead of Salmon at the time of the referendum. She was the most competent of the leaders in UK at the time of the pandemic and the criticism yesterday came as a surprise.
 
Shandy_top_89 said:
This needs to be given massive coverage and Farage needs to be harassed day and night about it as any other serious party leader would be.

I'd be surprised if this existed in isolation.
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It won’t be because the press are very pro reform, ……any another party would be slaughtered.
 
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