Off Topic Politics Thread

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All this nonsense about U Turns is ludicrous, if you are going in the wrong direction or in to a Cul De Sac, it makes sense to take a different route to solve a problem. Remember "the ladies not for turning"? That led to her downfall. This Labour Government is far from perfect and is taking too long to fulfil their promises, but you have to accept, that there are so many ways to address the problems left by 14 years of misrule. You can't even get a concensus within each individual party, and political and nimby interference slows everything down.
In my opinion Reform is not the answer and would fragment, if they ever got elected, and we would be in an even worse mess.
What led to Thatcher's downfall was Maastricht and her resistance to the EEC becoming an actual overlord of nation states!
 
And in today's least surprising news Suella Braverman has switched to '''''Reform''''', the party that absolutely is not the Tories, no way!
This is the spin from the outside but Farage by his own admission is a Thatcherite and far from being Tories mark2.0 its more a case of how he thinks the Tories should have been / still be..i.e. Tories minus the Blairites, Wets and One nation lot! Not my bag but the Tories mk 2.0 is laughable when the whole of the Cameron thru Sunak was liberals (including Boris) in charge of things.

YEs I guess its a scary thought that the Tory party's right wingers might have got some of their stuff through but the reality is Farage is just sheering off what he believes are actual Tories just as Corbyn/Green are shearing off the left of Labour.

I'm still in the "not voting" camp though. Literally nothing worth voting for. Its either parties that just talk but continue doing absolutely nothing other than the technocrats and quangos tell them to do or its the crazy gang(s) on either side. I'll sit it out and let the rest of you decide which useless rabble continues the race to the bottom.
 
I'm hoping enough defect that we hit the sweet spot where the Lib Dems become the official opposition.

Just another 44 to go....
There's not enough actual Tories in there for that to happen and of those many won't defect. Most of the Tory party is one nation and wets now and Farage doesn't want them. They're not "on brand."
 
Farage's claim that Reform is a totally different party to the Tories is starting to look a bit thin. Radio 4 seemed to think it is good news for Reform and another Tory disaster. I do agree that there should be a by-election where a seat changes hands due to a defection.

I think that these defections will prove to be very interesting in the future. I can see both Braverman and Jenrick vying for being the Reform leader after Farage. Not convinced that Farage will keep his seat in the next election.

Really disappointed that Farage is mooting an amnesty regarding the actions of British soldiers during the Troubles. This totally unacceptable with victims and their families being denied justice. It is something that ahould be decided by the courts and not extremist politicians.
 
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This would be the smart thing for her to do.

... I am not sure she is this smart and will still try and go for Reform-lite, despite there being a big gap in the market for moderate Conservatism which has been ignored for years.
A moderate any party would be great. Too many extremes have been bread from the birth of social media.

Just give a moderate political party to follow please
 
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Lsst t
A hung parliament with a governing coalition that has a mandate for electoral reform is would suit me.
Last time that happened we had the Tories and DUP!! Imagine the Tories with Reform and the DUP?? Badenoch needs to take a leaf out of Merkel's book as she never ever forged an alliance with AfD. She look for alternatives or go it alone if the Tories end up as the largest party but without an overall majority after the next election.
 
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Lsst t

Last time that happened we had the Tories and DUP!! Imagine the Tories with Reform and the DUP?? Badenoch needs to take a leaf out of Merkel's book as she never ever forged an alliance with AfD. She look for alternatives or go it alone if the Tories end up as the largest party but without an overall majority after the next election.
DUP lost a bunch of seats over the years since then. They are at 5 these days. They were at 10 when May did a confidence and supply with them and I doubt there will be any kind of coalition this time round with Reform/Tory. More likely Reform minority (if it is hung) with a confidence and supply arrangement with Conservatives. Neither want coalition.

Even with the polls being positive for left wing parties in terms of %, the seat projections of Tory+Reform are showing in the region of 350-400 so the only option Labour would have to get 326 would be coalition with Tories and possibly still need other left parties and that would never ever happen. lol
 
I hope this is some kind of sick joke. Look at the utter mess Reform are making in the councils they control. It seems that people need services, and that money for those services has to be raised by taxation.
As for Farage, do you seriously want a PM who is simultaneously up Putin’s arse and Trump’s?
For the record, I detest Starmer too, but he is actually doing a solid job in some areas, if you drill down past the Daily Mail headlines. And never forget the way the Tories broke this country over 14 years.
Worth saying twice <laugh>
 
This would be the smart thing for her to do.

... I am not sure she is this smart and will still try and go for Reform-lite, despite there being a big gap in the market for moderate Conservatism which has been ignored for years.

I think she is smart, and she'll go back to traditional/moderate Conservative values. It's the only play she has, and now the nutters are being weeded out, it's worth keeping an eye on.
 
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For a party that has a very anti refugee status, reform sure seem to take a lot of them.

They are barely indistinguishable from establishment, reforms policies barely differ from anything in our post Blairite world. Promise the moon on a stick to everyone, borrow money at ball crushing interest rates and blame him over there.

I sense another debasement to the pound is on the cards.
 
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A moderate any party would be great. Too many extremes have been bread from the birth of social media.

Just give a moderate political party to follow please
What people don't remember is that a "moderate" Tory party failed to get a majority against Gordon Brown when Labour had been in ages and the country was in collapse, only just managed a majority after they promised a referendum on the EU (that they didn't want to offer.) Lost a majority against Corbyn's very left manifesto and only recovered a big majority on a get Brexit done vote with Boris pushing a faux populist agenda which they then ignored sending them into oblivion.

Those that think being moderate or moving to the centre is the best option for the Tories is either not reading the room or looking at it from the left as where they would like things to be!

If the Tories do go "moderate" or to the centre there is no Brexit vote to save them this time and the talk of targeting 60 seats that is doing the rounds atm will be a very real thing! Like I've said before they are sandwiched in now. Move towards the centre they will be annihilated and they can't move to the right because Reform have squeezed them out hence why stuck in a narrow Lib Dem territory they are looking like they will go below 100 at the next GE!
 
What did for Margaret Thatcher was the Poll Tax
Something her government supported at the time. What did for her was the pro Euro lot in her party. Poll tax would've done for her at the next GE yes probably but her own party didn't remove her because of that!
 
What people don't remember is that a "moderate" Tory party failed to get a majority against Gordon Brown when Labour had been in ages and the country was in collapse, only just managed a majority after they promised a referendum on the EU (that they didn't want to offer.) Lost a majority against Corbyn's very left manifesto and only recovered a big majority on a get Brexit done vote with Boris pushing a faux populist agenda which they then ignored sending them into oblivion.

Those that think being moderate or moving to the centre is the best option for the Tories is either not reading the room or looking at it from the left as where they would like things to be!

If the Tories do go "moderate" or to the centre there is no Brexit vote to save them this time and the talk of targeting 60 seats that is doing the rounds atm will be a very real thing! Like I've said before they are sandwiched in now. Move towards the centre they will be annihilated and they can't move to the right because Reform have squeezed them out hence why stuck in a narrow Lib Dem territory they are looking like they will go below 100 at the next GE!
Tory Party is ****ed. Completely out manouvered by Reform in the north and East and Lib Dems in the south and West.

Problem is, Reform will absolutely hang the 'red wall' out to dry in the same way Boris wanted to before he completely bottled making any actual decisions. During Covid I think they were more socialist than Blair ever was..

A good centrist Labour party should absolutely be cleaning house right now. But the factionalism of the party is a ****ing joke, routinely tearing themselves apart whenever they get in power.

Next GE is interesting and genuinely could go in any direction, I'd wager a 2 way toss up of labour with lib or reform with con minority is on the cards and not much in it. Maybe the first election ever with 20% to 4 parties?
 
Cand stand the bloke but Labour have been caught out putting a video of Matt Goodwin (reform candidate for this Manchester constituency) trying to suggest he has a history of talking down and sneering at Manchester!

Problem being that the clip they edited into it was actually him sneering about the Tory conference. lol. Of course BBC verify will be all over this :P
 
Cand stand the bloke but Labour have been caught out putting a video of Matt Goodwin (reform candidate for this Manchester constituency) trying to suggest he has a history of talking down and sneering at Manchester!

Problem being that the clip they edited into it was actually him sneering about the Tory conference. lol. Of course BBC verify will be all over this :P


They haven't doctored the clip, have they? so in what sense have Labour 'been caught out'? He clearly says he was "unfortunate" to have been in Manchester.

I'm sure the right wing media will be all over it.