The Dianne Abbott fiasco makes Labour look a bit pathetic when it comes to decision making.
Rishi had a good day today in front of real people and came across as human for the first time in the campaign.
The Lib Dem Lake Windermere stunt was news worthy but nothing else.
Lib Dem for me as they have a real chance of getting rid of the Tory who is a faceless MP compared to his predecessor.
Our boundaries have changed as well so I am not sure if that helps the Lib Dem candidate as I live in the Tory heartland of rural South Oxfordshire
Rishi had a good day? I want your drugs!
https://tactical.vote/
In other words, everyone stop faffing about wondering what Labour Change means or WTF is Ed Davey doing falling into a lake – just get this despicable shower of liars and charlatans out of Downing Street!
Atorvastatin for me.
Labour, despite the various irritations. Chances of a Labour win in stubbornly blue Folkestone and Hythe have risen to 100% apparently. The present incumbent has taken to writing books, so he’s obviously seen the writing on the screen.
In my constituency the way to get the Tory out is to vote Labour.
However, I’m currently uninspired. Labour’s slogan is “Change” but I don’t know what they are going to actually do that’s different, other than be nicer.
And that’s not a good enough reason?
It is. When talking to young people about the different between Labour and the Tories, it’s pretty much Labour nice, Tories not.
Labour don’t seem so nice this week with their left wing purge. When it comes to it, will they be paying out blood infection victims, Grenfall, police pensions etc any quicker?
That seems a very broad brush to damn them with, and a bit mean. Uncertain, other than stereotype, what Abbott has to do with the other mentioned.
Starmer has appeared quite ruthless this week. Once in power, will the niceness disappear?
Competence is a better bet. Today, the Tories are promising 100 new GP surgeries. I seem to remember a promise for 40 new hospitals. In 2015, they promised 5,000 additional GPs, then 6,000 in 2019. Where are they all?
100 new surgeries? So about 80 PAs and one supervising doc. That’ll do it.
They may be just talking new buildings for existing practices.
One idea is changing planning regs. There are hundreds of new houses being built near where I work. No-one is taking into account the need for schools, health care, even shops and cafes.
Abbott is standing. Starmer didn’t want her to but his opinion was a minority. It is called democracy.
Personally I think she is divisive
I don’t think there can be much change with a different government of any persuasion, given the state our country’s got into over the past 8 years.
Where I live, two parties can win – Conservative or Lib. Dem.
Two parties will lose – Labour and Green.
Not sure if any others are running but, if they are, they will also lose.
Lib. Dem. for me.
I know absolutely who I’m not voting for. Anyone who votes for the incumbents is either a masochist or myopic.
Or a danger to society.
The best ‘not-Tory’ I can, which may be meaningless in this constituency. Tactical voting sites suggest Lib Dem is the best bet, and they took the council from the Conservatives in the most recent local elections, but I’ll have to check out the manifesto because as I have said elsewhere I’m really not sure what they stand for. So long as the manifesto isn’t abhorrent, and it seems to be the best chance, however slim, of unseating the incumbent then I’m probably in. That said, my heart says to vote for the government I want and the closest to that will probably be Labour.
Nope. Ed Davey twatting about in thirsty photo ops means I’ll probably cast my vote the way I actually want and give my cross to Labour. I would be absolutely gutted if the current MP’s comfortable majority protected her and I had thrown my vote away on a Temu Boris Johnson.
The best anti Tory option where I am is Labour so they will get my vote
Not inspired by any of them though.
Can’t vote in UK I think, but would probably vote Green. Won’t matter much who is running the country as the world slides into self destruction (but probably too late now)
I do hate the Tories though
The same 3 main party candidates this time around as in 2019 and that time the Tory won with 46%, the Labour candidate got 36% and the LibDem candidate got 16%. I was a bit concerned that Labour and the LibDems would split the opposition vote and allow the Tory to scrape back in, but despite some former Tory voters being more likely to go LibDem this time, I think enough will go to Labour to swing it.
So I shall vote Labour as usual. Albeit that I’m not confident that a lot will change, such is the mess that we are currently in.
As an aside, I know a woman who is running for a seat up-country.
I’m in awe of her, a reaction I know she doesn’t want from me, or indeed anyone else.
Easy-peasy-lemon-queasy to be a man who went to Eton, Oxford yadda yadda yadda, and then runs as a Tory where a hat-stand with a blue rosette could get elected – much, much, much harder to be a woman, representing a fringe party, running in a tough seat.
Fat Boy J. would, no doubt, at he did to Paula Sherriff in 2019, laugh at her.
If, and I ain’t counting any chickens, Labour do get in, I think we should all marvel at quite how much of a loser Johnson, following the huge win in 2019, actually is.
And we should never, ever let him, or anyone in this country, forget it.
It would easily be the biggest turnaround in the U.K.’s electoral history in my lifetime, indeed in the last 100 years. Frankly, would there have been an equivalent result before then? I doubt it.
Just as most of Europe and the rest of the world is embracing the far right, Britain appears on the verge of a refreshing swing to the left. Sadly, Labour will most likely last in office for their customary single term, by which time the world will have descended into further chaos and they will likely be voted out on a surge of support for a vastly more right wing Conservative Party, or worse. The shelf life of liberal democracy seems to be expiring everywhere you look, and Britain is unlikely to remain relatively immune for much longer.
I’ll probably vote Labour, while I still can.
Single term?
I will vote Conservative again without much enthusiasm this time. The Labour Party are outflanking them on the right and they have been largely ineffective. If Labour do win I would hope that they could make a success of fixing all the issues.
Why? I’m not trying to start a fight, but I’m genuinely interested, given all the issues you mention.
I would like a smaller public sector. I would like the NHS to get back to concentrate on chore purposes. Ideally I would want a reformed NHS, anyone wanting to use it would accept that mistakes do occur. I want the private sector deal with the majority of public services; that requires better regulation of the private sector, which is where the current government have failed.
Can you explain to me why you characterise some services as public (presumably mainly health, infrastructure and defence) but want them to be run by the private sector, inevitably introducing a profit motive, shareholders and dividends, a cabal of executives and a boardroom answerable only to themselves to obscure the lack of public accountability. We’ve had that for decades and it’s a complete cluster.
Damn! We’re going to have a political discussion on a political thread – tears on the way, I fear.
Let’s have a heated debate!
The private sector has to make a profit, so it must spend money wisely. The public sector has no such constraint, there is an intrinsic incentive to take on a wider role.Venality is not confined to the private sector.
Thames Water have a 15 billion pound debt, I can’t see whichever way you look at it as a profit.
Ofwat, the public sector department set up to regulate-has failed quite plainly
Ofwat may have failed but it’s up to the company to run a profitable business in the first place. I fail to see how they can’t make money, they run a regional monopoly.
Dividends ¬= Investments
Public sector businesses have a duty to wash their faces financially, which in practice means creating enough surplus to maintain investment and forward motion like any other business. (I admit this doesn’t always happen, but there’s no intrinsic reason why it shouldn’t.) What they don’t have to do is pay eye-watering sums in dividends, executive salaries, bonuses and so on or be dependent on the whims of insurance companies, hedge funds and the rest of that shower. I refuse to believe that a properly run public company couldn’t perform more effectively and profitably than, say, Thames Water. It’s the business of government to ensure that public companies are functional, and if that requires subsidies, so be it. It would be hard to argue that UK rail users get (or got) better value for money out of private rail companies than German rail users get out of the subsidised Deutsche Bahn
I can think of 78 billion reasons why it would be entirely fair to say that the private sector has signally failed to ‘spend money wisely’.
I think ‘management’ in the NHS needs to have some private sector know-how. The number of different parties who need to ‘sign off’ a new service in a hospital is horrendous, leading to tremendous delays. An organisational shake up would be welcome.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
What concerns me about Streeting’s reliance on the private sector to help solve the waiting list problem is that it is the same limited pool of doctors, nurses, anaesthetists, radiologists, physios, etc that the NHS and Private are dipping into. It may well make staff shortages in the NHS worse.
The problems of the NHS need to be solved from within
I agree that many aspects of the NHS could be improved by better internal management but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the overwhelming need for a joined up social care strategy. It doesn’t mater how much sharper the NHS management gets, absent a national strategy that understands the connections between poverty, austerity, sexual health education, elderly care etc etc they will just be pissing in the wind.
I appreciate you being the only person to indicate they will vote Tory so far. Not looking to create some kind of pile on but I will take issue on the private vs public debate. For the last 14 years almost every gov’t funded initiative has been fed to the private sector, and we’ve seen Group 4 and Capita to name just a few, plus hybrids like Track and Trace hoover up huge sums. The service they provided has been abysmal. It’s a gravy chain for their shareholders, and I look forward to Labour stopping it.
I’m betting no mention of social care in either main party manifesto.
This is the sort of area I expect Labour to have at least an idea on what to do, even if it is to call for a cross party consensus. Social Care is bankrupting local authorities, including those that are well run.
Social care as an individual right free at the point of care is unaffordable for the taxpayer. in England yet no Government will admit it.
The next generation of taxpayers are already stuffed with student debts, silly house prices/rents and they cannot afford to pay for us lot as we enter our dotage.
Another example of the private sector being so much more efficient than the public sector (at squeezing out funds for shareholders and hedge fund owners)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential
There are a lot of private sector people going into public sector roles. I am one of them. The issues around efficiency aren’t a lack of a profit motive. It would help in some regards but it is not the key issue.
Public sector is heavily politicised and heavily scrutinised. The key objective is to not make mistakes and to ensure any decision has many, many people agreeing them. And many of these people do their best to ensure they will not be held to account for any decision. Stuff takes forever and it is very risk averse. Which, ironically and depressingly, creates significant additional risk.
Just look at how well things were stood up during the pandemic. And now watch how all of those decision are dissected.
And it is difficult to name a past public sector organisation has been improved by being made private. Possibly BA. Possibly some of the railways (but not the railway as an entire operation).
I’m advocating the help of people like you to make the NHS run better, not privatise the whole thing.
I agree with your last paragraph. When you factor in salaries, dividends & bonuses etc, a lot of money goes into individuals’ pockets rather than making the services better
But a smaller public sector means much more than the NHS. At the moment, something like 2/3 of local government expenditure goes on adult social care; demographics mean that we know that can only increase. A smaller public sector means a reduction in funds for local government. This means squeezing every other service that they are obliged to provide and pretty much removes any provision for the nice stuff like leisure centres, libraries, parks and gardens, arts venues. It means unrepaired potholes, less frequent bin collections, squeezing charges out of everything possible like parking, planning applications, etc. That doesn’t sound like the kind of world we should be aspiring to.
This can’t be dressed up by saying ‘Oh, we shall fund public services after the economy has grown’, because the Tories won’t do that. They are explicit. Saving on budgets is all about funding tax cuts.
Reform of the NHS should be a priority. The idea that it’s “the envy of the world” is so far from the truth.
Not after the last 14 years but still the envy of Americans I know who not only have the financial burden of health insurance and co pays but have to argue every bill with the insurance companies and hospitals.
I’ve had to argue myself at the cost of treatment in a foreign hospital. Frankly, being seen promptly beats free at the point of access.
And Wes Streeting has made it clear that it will be. It’s the objective of a generally smaller state that I think is undesirable and unsustainable.
Local government does not spend 2/3rds of its budget on adult social care. According to the Local Government Association, it’s about 39%. It’s just over 60% if you include children’s social care.
Finally I’m in a constituency where labour have a realistic chance of winning so labour it is.
Lib Dem though it’s a three way race and the other two are spending a fortune so who knows. The Labour guy leapt into Mid Beds declaring undying love for the constituency 9 months ago and won (Labour gained no votes but the Tories started 3 home) and has now hopped next door into Hitchin which is now his favourite place. Before Mid Beds he loved some North London seat unconditionally. He’s very active though – constantly posting political stuff in local FB groups who ban politics just to try it on – and is benefiting from national analysis in the tactical voting sites though Labour came a poor third last time though the boundaries have changed since then. I’m an LD member anyway but Labour are not offering much though I’d have to hold my nose and vote for them if it kept the Tories out. Currently I just can’t. I haven’t forgiven them for the way Momentum behaved in the last election TBH.
Labour. We have new constituency which takes in part of Exeter, which was Ben Bradhaw’s seat, so we may have a chance. Maybe! We were in East Devon, which will remain Tory with the boundary changes I’m sure. The Liberals are quite strong here, but I really have no idea what they stand for, other than not being Conservatives, and I assume they would not go into coalition them this time.
Labour. Not exactly excited by Starmer but I’ve learned it’s best not to become excited over politicians, and I think he’s decent and intelligent (although I wish he would be willing to talk about the mess created by Brexit). I lean left of centre and our incumbent Labour MP will probably have a big majority.
Labour. It shouldn’t be about the personality of the leader, but as it goes I think Starmer is a grown-up with real-world experience of hard graft and serious leadership of a complex organisation. He’s also ruthless, and understands that the median British voter is socially liberal, economically centre-left and culturally small-c conservative. He’s pitching to the normies, and quite right too. He’d probably be more effective against Johnson, where his quiet managerialism would play better against that boorish populism, but Rishi will do.
The older I get, the more of a busted flush ideology seems. The right is correct about some stuff; the left about others. Some things need a liberal touch; others need a bit more authoritarianism. The Tories understood that first, but their talent bench got cleared out by Johnson and Brexit. I think the sooner Labour realise that “end of history” complacent Belsize Park progressivism is simply not where the country is any more, the better (and the less said about the hard left, the even better). Starmer and Rayner get that, I think. The rest of the front bench still need to convince me.
So I’m not inspired, but I think that’s a good thing. Inspirational leaders (let alone people who think one philosophy is the whole answer) seem rarely to do much good. I just want some ruthless competence. And I really do think anyone who looks at the state of the country, the plight of young people, the absolute ruin of our public services, etc etc and concludes “more please” before ticking the Tory box is… well, not insane, but clearly working off different priorities from me.
I just want stuff to work.
Yes. ⬆️
And twice yes.
Labour, which in my case is Dave Rowntree out of Blur. I’ve got the bongos waiting by the front door in case he pops round.
Our sitting Tory MP got 50% of the vote last time with the Lib Dems replacing the Corbyn-hobbled Labour in second. This is one of those constituencies where tactical voting ought to tip the Tories out, and I know I should probably go with the odds and vote LD, but they’ve annoyed me with their Labour Can’t Win Here leaflets. I’d also like for once to actually vote for a manifesto that I think’s best for the country – even if it’s ‘least worst’ – as I’ve voted tactically in every election as far as I can remember.
I wish I understood some of Starmer’s positions, Gaza being the obvious one, but I take the view that he’s almost certainly thought about all this more than I have, and he seems like an adult in a room full of sugared-up toddlers, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
My vote will go to Lib Dem but only as a tactical vote to keep John Deadwood’s successor out.
I desperately want a Labour government with a workable majority but more than that I want the Tories obliterated.
Diane Abbott? She’s had her time and what she said (apology or not,) was never going to fly in Starmer’s Labour. I really like the team around him, especially the strong women he’s got. It’s about time we had some compassion and empathy in our politics.
After the last 14 years, we bloody deserve it.
Same here, I want a Labour government but the only hope in my constituency is tactical voting so Lib Dem it is.
The current MP has blocked me on Twitter for calling him a hypocrite, he described himself as a “champion of the environment” and I pointed out he had twice voted to allow the water companies to continue to pump shit into our rivers, within 10 minutes “Duncan Baker MP has blocked you”.
Will make a decision nearer the time.
Lib Dem is the usual tactical vote in my constituency, but then our Conservative MP (who is generally well regarded) is retiring, so it’s possible tactics won’t be needed this time.
Will watch Labour to see if they do anything mental in the next 6 weeks. Otherwise, will probably lean towards them as I’d like to see a reasonably strong government emerge from this election. Glad they seem to have reached the correct decision on Diane Abbott.
Which decision is that? The one Abbott briefed to the BBC, the one Starmer told reporters, or the one Abbott complained about rumours of, which was the same one she had briefed to the BBC?
My assumption is that Abbott hasn’t been banned, she’s simply not going to be selected, and that Starmer is attempting to defang the story (for now) by refuting Abbott’s own
characterisation/mischaracterisation (delete to preference).
Lawyerspeak, innit. Or alternatively, fighting obfuscation with obfuscation.
To possibly shift the Tory, it’s gotta be the local Dim Leb (not that sort of Leb, unfortunately).
The Labour Party should win with ease. The Diane Abbott issue is a gift to the Tory party on the day they lost the chance to smear Angela Rayner. If the Tories do get in I am going to find a way to get out of this country as they depress me that much.
There may not be significant change indeed itself but I feel the NHS will gradually start to heal itself under a Labour govt and hopefully we will see an improved rail service.
Where I live, it’s realistically between Naomi Long (Alliance Party leader) and Gavin Robinson (acting DUP leader). Long unseated a previous DUP leader called Robinson (no relation) some years ago, after a scandal; she may do it again.
I harbour grudges about ALL parties taking public money salaries and doing nothing for three years while the NI Assembly was collapsed. But I may vote Alliance to get rid of DUP. It’s similar to the views about about voting whoever to get rid of Conservatives.
Optimistic that Naomi will benefit from the Unionist vote being split more than 2019. TUV standing should guarantee that as long and as Sinn Fein and SDLP don’t stand like last time, hopefully the DUP will get a bloody nose.
Where I live Sinn Fein are a cert.
Well after the vitriol that I received on a post a few months ago regarding allowing overseas citizens the vote, where I pondered whether I should register, I didn’t bother and so will not be voting.
I would have voted Labour, so if the Tories miraculously get back in, then you only have yourself a to blame…….. 🙂
As the overseas voter who started that post and got plenty of similar comment, I stick my head above the parapet to say there is still time, I believe –
BBC – “The deadline to register to vote in the general election is 23:59 BST on Tuesday 18 June”.
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
I just checked the useful tactical vote link posted higher in the thread and it looks like all the opposition party votes and a third of the Tory votes are needed to remove Priti Patel from her Witham constituency.
As she wisely removed herself from the front benches many months ago, has kept silent while Braverman stole her soapbox, and has a reputation as a conscientious constituency MP, I don’t think she is going anywhere.
But, who knows?
Weird. That link says you need to be 16 or over to vote in England or Northern Ireland and over 14 in Wales and Scotland! Huh?
Over that age to register to vote
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/cy/node/23909
I think it is there so those who turn 18 (16 in Scotland/Wales) on the date of the next election can register.
Next election? Not the one in a month?
In general. Let’s say on 5 July your 16 year old kid wants to register to vote. That way, they’ll be ready for the following General Election without having to wait 2 more years – at least I imagine that’s the thinking behind it.
I’m actually not inclined to register to vote at the moment – I’ve always thought that as a non-resident, I shouldn’t impact the decision. I pondered registering when you posted as my son is now resident (so I do now have an interest) and there is a good chance that we will buy property and spend part of the year in the UK.
That said, my previous constituency was Manchester Withington, which I believe is still a strong labour seat (large student population – including me when I was there!), so my vote is not going to make any difference anyway.
I voted by post last week. The tactical voting sites recommend the Labour candidate to defeat Priti Patel in Witham. She is a fairly anonymous town councillor still living in Luton. The Green Party candidate has stood in every election since the early nineties, and is a decent fellow, as seems to be the Lib Dem, who lives in the town and is a choirmaster. The Reform candidate is another local who looks like Paddy McAloon (now, not in the 80s). And then there’s Chelsey Jay.
Could be a winner!
Purely tactical in my case, whoever is best placed to oust the Tories. The boundary changes have quite an impact in our neck of the woods; Witney was very safe Tory (and probably still is) but the new constituency is potentially more marginal, so you never know. Actually, Witney was briefly Labour after Shaun Woodward defected – hilarious, but hardly representative. We really should have a rule that crossing the floor triggers a by-election.
I’ll vote tactically. It was / maybe still is a Tory safe seat but boundary changes plus their rampant unpopularity is making the guy being parachuted in from an adjoining seat quite jittery. He’s famously lazy and self serving (tax payers have paid not just him but half his family) so my vote will go to whoever has the greatest chance of sending him to the job center.
Voter registation numbers among young people are not terribly good in the UK. I think early registration is to try and encourage the young to take an interest. I wonder if it’s working …
None of them will be going anywhere near a Job Centre, if they get the boot.
Trust me on this.
Round here a pig with a blue rosette would normally walk it, but our current MP is a pal of Bojo and has done a big fat nothing. He can’t even spell ‘hospitals’ correctly on the leaflets he gets his surfs to stuff through my letter box. Plus, boundary changes.
For the first time in my life there’s a real chance my tactical vote will not be wasted.
Hey, if he surfs at least that’s something.
surfs = digital lackeys
@salwarpe
Given that they’re blue and about the height of a letterbox,
I thought he meant to write “smurfs”
I think fentonsteve has had a S(m)urfette of puns about his harmless keyboard slip.
Oh crikey, I do know how to spell serfs but sometimes my fingers won’t type what my brain tells them. Is there a doctor in the house?
I liked surfs
Not many big waves here on the Fens.
Looks like an Afterword Parliament would be led by the Lib Dems.
With a Labour opposition.
If that were to happen in the real world it would be… Marvellous!
Lib Dem voters before elections are almost as delusional as England fans before major tournaments
I’m in furthest North constituency where we have been Lib and then LibDem for generations. Probably with less enthusiasm than in the past, but more recently just to keep the SNP away from us. Independence for Scotland – no thanks. Independence for Shetland preferred. Better still, will Norway take us back?
Norway has been astute with it’s oil wealth.
ABL (Anyone But Labour) – no idea why I’m so entrenched in that view, maybe growing up an living in the comfy Home Counties. I’m drawn to, and support, the concept of Socialism, but traditional Labour values – even though they’re not necessarily present in the current set-up – just don’t “speak” to me.
Heart (and Hope) says LibDem, Head says Conservative (sorry!)
Locally, LibDem Council here has been strong on local issues and “getting stuff done”, but just don’t believe they have that ability nationally.
Was hoping to see Tarquin Fin-Tim-Lin-Bin-Whin-Bim-Lim-Bus-Stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel (Silly Party) on the ballot paper, but seen no literature to suggest they’ll be an option to waste my vote.
I honestly honestly can’t understand your ABL. I’m a lifelong Labour guy but if they had just presided over the last 14 years of corrupt morally bankrupt failure I’d be thinking “Let’s get this shower of evil bastards out – I’m going to vote tactically even if that means my old man, god rest his soul, will be turning in his grave”.
Yup – 14 years of ever-diminishing returns, coupled with 5 or 6 years of in-fighting and “back me, I have one policy” posturing, and then tanking the economy in a prime ministerial tenure shorter than Brian Clough at Leeds United.
All the evidence is there, yet I just have this mental block putting a cross there
(I wish I had better reasoning/explanation than “they just don’t do it for me”, but hey ho …)
Thank goodness you have great taste in music.
Ah…
Which makes me wonder – will Paul Weller ban Rigid Digit from listening to his music?
Forget about the S word. It’s a label that’s been misinterpreted, insulted and traduced endlessly until contemplating its meaning in the 21st century in Western Europe is a rabbit hole of largely wasted time. Reject the idea that everybody is an island and embrace the difficult truth that in the end we all sink or swim together, collectively. Vote Labour.
“From each, according to their means. To each, according to their need.”
That’s my understanding of Socialism.
That’s the nub of it, for me too.
The operatic hysteria in Right-thinking circles on social media surrounding the (possible) arrival of something approximating to socialism is positively McCarthyite. To hear some of them talk you’d think that Starmer is a sinister combination of Marx, Stalin, Arthur Scargill and Jeremy Corbyn.
I will be voting Labour and with much more enthusiasm than in 2019.
I live directly over the road from my local polling station, so will be plastering the windows with posters on the day.
Very much hoping the results will be a rout for both the Brexit and Scexit varieties of nationalism.
I am in a lucky position. My heart says Labour, and it is the way I have always voted, and where I am it is a two-horse race between Lab/Cons so I don’t need to make myself tactically vote Lib Dem/Plaid/Green/SNP or whatever to get the Tories out.
Even more lucky is that I have known our candidate for about 15 years and he know he is a good lad, so don’t need to feel conflicted at all.
I am even doing some leafletting this time round.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express embarked on a pincer movement, apt given how much their readerships ADORE the war, both leading on their front page with ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’.
Now, quite apart from the fact you’d be mad to want to talk to someone who’d done PPE at Oxford if you had an option to talk to someone else who had actually done a degree on Mickey Mouse, let me tell you about Walthamstow.
The place really started to go down the pan under Thatcher, and it was only about twenty or so years ago when it began to recover.
A pivotal moment was when a councillor declared that there was no place any more for ‘rich, white, Victorian men’. She was clumsily referring to William Morris, and while it was true that the Gallery which bore his name had seen better days, the comment seemed to spark something. Gradually, ever so slowly, Walthamstow started to pick up, but I remember one Art Shop circa 2000 still seeming like an oasis in a desert.
I’m pretty sure the rumoured burning of books (and the library’s fantastic CD collection) might have contributed to this upturn too.
It was decided to renovate the museum and within five years it was awarded a Best Museum in the country accolade.
This improvement, which had a knock-on effect for everything in the area, had nothing to do with central government (Labour or Conservative), little to do with local government, nothing to do with big business, nothing to do with hedge fund managers. It was almost entirely kick-started by artists, many without degrees, and if any of them had gone on to further education, they almost certainly would have done a ‘Mickey Mouse’ one.
I hate to imagine what the place would be like now if Rishi Sunak and his city pals with ‘proper’ degrees had got there first.
One of those ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees must be studying Personal Protective Equipment at Oxford.
Or in Michelle Mone’s case poring over PPE invitations to tender
in Edinburgh’s Oxford Bar
I live on the south coast in one of the very few, very isolated red dots in a vast surrounding ocean of blue. The sitting MP Peter Kyle has kept his nose clean and his head down for years, currently upsetting only the very active local pro-Palestine lobby by basically saying nothing on the subject. He’s been a decent constituency rep and will have my vote. Currently shadow minister for science and technology (which boils down to saying “science is good isn’t it, we should spend a bit more on it” a lot), and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he gets rewarded with a major front bench position in a Starmer government, he seems very much typical ministerial material.
Hoping to get rid of Peter Bottomley here in Worthing. My vote will go to Labour with a decent chance of success. When we moved here in 2002, it was still God’s waiting room but not so much these days, although it’s taken a long time and there’s still a way to go.
Labour, which given that l am in Rishi’s catchment area of Richmond, looks like a wasted vote. They finished in second place last time but were nowhere near winning. Slim chance of overturning the massive Tory vote here, but fingers crossed!
It’s ‘Sir’ Graham Brady roundabouts here. Plenty of wealth in leafy Cheshire, Hale, Bowdon and Alti.
Though spookily I’ve just received a questionaire from one Oliver Carroll , a lovely young man, who is apparently a conservative candidate. It can go and be recycled.
I’ll be voting tactically for whoever stands the best chance of ousting the appalling Coffey.
So Labour it is – thanks Lodey for the link above – uninspiring though the current leadership might be.
Labour. We have a good candidate; I was there at the selection process and I was genuinely emotional when the result was announced. He’s young, environmentally conscious and engaging – just the kind of person the party needs.
Vote Afterword! A hamper of Corsair chicken in every home!
My sitting MP is Michael Fabricant. Any guesses whether he’ll get my vote?
His surname always puts me in mind of a race of evil aliens from Dr. Who, or perhaps the latest automated civil defence machine from the R&D department in Robocop.
The absurd thing on his head puts me in mind of…I don’t know. Genuinely. It’s quite remarkable, like nothing on Earth. If it’s actually his own hair, he makes Donald Trump look cool and hip. If it’s not his, it’s simply the worst toupee ever made.
He’s a Tory Whig, isn’t he?
A Whig who thinks he’s a wag. Let’s send him auf dem Weg.
In an interview in the i on Friday the Steel City Sinatra said that he would rather shit on his hands and clap than vote tory. I think that’s a no.
A stock response that’s previously come in handy, to the question in the OP:
“I’d rather shit my pants than vote Conservative”.
And I’d rather shit my pants and sit in it all day than vote Reform.
I think there is a danger that in some of the currently-Tory-but-formerly-Red Wall seats, the disgruntled voters will switch, but not back to Labour.
Switch to Reform etc.
Currently, it seems Reform’s national vote preference is around 10%, which places them somewhere between The Greens and The LibDems. I assume their voters are almost exclusively in the North of England and parts of the Midlands, so in that region their percentage must be significantly higher than 10%, while support for the Greens and LibDems would be a lot stronger in the South.
Apparently Labour and LibDem supporters are the least likely to change to any other parties and Labour remain 20 percentage points clear of the Tories. But polling suggests that around 40% of previous Tory voters are still currently “undecided”.
I wouldn’t make that assumption. In 2019, the Brexit Party didn’t stand in Tory held seats, so we’re likely to see the biggest notional to swing to Reform in those seats. The seats where they are making most noise seem to be in the East of England – Clacton, Boston & Skegness (OK, that’s the Midlands too, but it’s Tory Midlands), though doubtless there’ll be a spotlight on Ashfield too.
Here’s a couple of quotes from a recent Survation poll:
“We find that Reform perform best in the constituencies where the Conservatives are currently set to lose the most votes.”
“Our March MRP had the Conservatives winning 98 seats. When we presented respondents with a scenario in which Reform did not stand in their constituency, the Conservative seat count rose to 150.” That’s of massive significance.
The issues that stand out in poll after poll as of most concern are the NHS and the cost of living. Reform have noting to offer on either. For those fixated on immigration a Reform vote is pretty much guaranteed. But there aren’t enough to swing anything much.
30p Lee’s seat in Ashfield could pick up as much as 15% of the vote for Reform given his recognition level, but they are still forecast to come 3rd to a Labour win. The data below was pre the election being called so might shift a bit, but the gaps are huge at the moment
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-red-wall-voting-intention-11-12-may-2024/
The Labour candidate in Clacton is young, black, good looking, and seems to represent some kind of future for this sorry island… but hey, what’s that coming over the hill? Why, it’s Fromage representing the exact opposite. Hoorah!
Keir should sign off on this election broadcast immediately.
Brilliant Morton Moreland cartoon on Sunak’s D Day disaster in today’s Sunset Times
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/cartoons/article/morten-morland-sunday-times-cartoon-june-9-2024-ts7hz0blk
Finally a Brexit Prime Minister apologises for leaving Europe….
Oh, well played
For those who can’t get past The Thunderer’s popup offensive, go here and do what they tell you:
https://12ft.io/
Labour will win and…
… we’ll struggle to notice much difference.
I think that, as with the Blair/Brown governments, a great many people will notice a positive difference.
Things are getting weird down here in Mid Sussex where the only thing stopping the Tories getting kicked out on their arse is Dave from Blur.
The multi-millionaire socialist tub-thumper is doing a great job, running a drumming circle for kids at a local fete, visiting the Rok Skool music centre round the corner, and even being charming to old ladies at whist drives, for all I know. He seems like a genuinely nice and committed chap and I agree with nearly everything he stands for. But.
The Lib Dems were runners up in 2019 and wiped the Cons out in the local elections. With the Tories getting 53% of the vote at the last General, the last thing we need is a popular, hard-working, straight-talking Labour candidate to split the opposition vote. Dave can go back to playing Wembley with his cheese farming bass player every few years, having done his bit – but if his bit was keeping a Tory MP in their job, I’m not sure what he’d have to say about it. Woo-Hoo, probably.
Sounds like your local Labour Party should have scratched Eddie Izzard’s desperate itch for a shot at a seat
She would have been perfect. She’d have doorstepped around Burgess Hill, a 1950’s theme park, in full Suzy mode. Thereby trashing the Labour vote, ensuring a massive swing to the LDs and a Tory defeat.
I have just voted, as I signed up for a postal vote during Covid, and it seems you keep getting them for every election afterwards.
There were 12 candidates, I suppose the figure is so high as this is Holborn and St Pancras where Keir Starmer is the Labour candidate, and the various independent candidates hope that standing against him will help promote whatever their causes are. Nothing wrong with that, but they don’t seem to have made much of an effort. The only leaflets we’ve had through the door have been for Labour, the Liberals and an independent called Andrew Feinstein. The Liberal is saying we should vote for him “to send a message to Keir Starmer” although as their policies aren’t that different to Labour’s, I can’t really see what that message is. Andrew Feinstein’s leaflet was entirely about Gaza and didn’t mention the constituency at all, although he actually lives here.
Still, at least I feel now that I’ve done my bit and can ignore the next two weeks of of the space filling coverage in the media – I think they forgot to pace themselves and have used all of their material already.
There seems to be some kind of Concordance, at least for the Labour and Conservative parties. Morning news bulletins often start with reports that today the two main parties will be campaigning on housing (or whatever the issue of the day might be).
Really? Do we need to ask? Irrespective of whether you feel Starmer a pale version of, I don’t know, Anthony Eden, FFS, it is all around getting rid of this shower of shits. And anyone, unless they live in a Tory/Lib Dem marginal, who thinks a vote for other than Labour worthy even considering, well, something is wrong.
I don’t really want to vote for any of the available options where I live. I don’t mind voting for someone who will almost certainly lose- I think I have only once voted for the person who won. I don’t expect to agree with everything or even most of what a particular party or individual proposes to do. But there is nothing and nobody that represents my overall perspective. That would normally mean picking out an individual that seemed genuine and/or capable, but no joy there. Oh for the union election days when one could vote to ‘re-open nominations’.
Glancing at the OP again, as I scroll to the newest comment, I’m struck by how long ago the Dianne Abbott fiasco seems to have been, and how many Tory fiascos there have been since.