General Election Pre-Thread (6 of 6)

[markavfc40]

I will never understand how anyone, who isn't really wealthy and doesn't have a social conscience, isn't absolutely fuming at what the Tories have done since 2010 and isn't chomping at the bit to see the back of them.

I started work/paying taxes at 17 in 1991. Hand on heart I didn't really pay a huge amount of attention to what my taxes were paying for until I moved out of my mom and dads in my early 20's and started a family etc. I'd say by the time Labour came to power in 1997 I was politically engaged. I knew I was happy to pay my taxes for good public services, a decent welfare safety net if ever me or mine fell on hard times and to ensure those less fortunate than me due to disability or circumstance were helped. I felt that overall I got pretty good bang for my buck until 2010.

Since 2010 I have paid more than ever in tax and in return I have seen our NHS decimated, other public services either completely disappear or decimated, the welfare safety net eroded, the most vulnerable amongst us given a good kicking and stigmatised, and the freedom I had to live and work in 27 other countries disappear, a freedom that my children will possibly never see.

To say I am pissed off is an understatement. Not because I am paying more tax. I'd happily pay more tax than I do now but for that I want the NHS I had in 2010, I want decent social care, I want decent public services like roads to be maintained, have local libraries, youth centres for our children, schools to be maintained, litter to be picked etc etc and I want to go to bed at night knowing that we have a government that have the will to help the most vulnerable amongst us not the raging desire to kick them.

I can't wait to get to the polling booth again this time next week and stick my X next to the candidate most likely to beat the Tory.

[Demitri_C]

1 minute ago, markavfc40 said:

I will never understand how anyone, who isn't really wealthy and doesn't have a social conscience, isn't absolutely fuming at what the Tories have done since 2010 and isn't chomping at the bit to see the back of them.

I started work/paying taxes at 17 in 1991. Hand on heart I didn't really pay a huge amount of attention to what my taxes were paying for until I moved out of my mom and dads in my early 20's and started a family etc. I'd say by the time Labour came to power in 1997 I was politically engaged. I knew I was happy to pay my taxes for good public services, a decent welfare safety net if ever me or mine fell on hard times and to ensure those less fortunate than me due to disability or circumstance were helped. I felt that overall I got pretty good bang for my buck until 2010.

Since 2010 I have paid more than ever in tax and in return I have seen our NHS decimated, other public services either completely disappear or decimated, the welfare safety net eroded, the most vulnerable amongst us given a good kicking and stigmatised, and the freedom I had to live and work in 27 other countries disappear, a freedom that my children will possibly never see.

To say I am pissed off is an understatement. Not because I am paying more tax. I'd happily pay more tax than I do now but for that I want the NHS I had in 2010, I want decent social care, I want decent public services like roads to be maintained, have local libraries, youth centres for our children, schools to be maintained, litter to be picked etc etc and I want to go to bed at night knowing that we have a government that have the will to help the most vulnerable amongst us not the raging desire to kick them.

I can't wait to get to the polling booth again this time next week and stick my X next to the candidate most likely to beat the Tory.

Mark how you celebrating next weeks victory ? I bet you are so excited they are finally out

[Davkaus]

14 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

The thing is mate you cant see covid wasnt as big if not worse.  

 

This would be a fair point, but fortunately we can point to how much they were already **** everything up prior to 2020  

With how much of a shitshow it's been post Covid and Ukraine, we can't forget the 10 years of stagnant wages, low growth, and austerity that preceded it. 

They should have been out on their arse in 2019, but Corbyn and it being a Brexit election bought them another 5 years they didn't deserve

Edited June 27 by Davkaus

[picicata]

My constituency is Banbury which currently has Victoria Prentis (con) as it's MP. The border changes have brought Chipping Norton into the area which, much to most people's surprise, is a Labour strong hold. Possibility that Labour might win this one.

[Demitri_C]

Just now, Davkaus said:

This would be a fair point, but fortunately we can point to how much they were already **** everything up prior to 2020  

With how much of a shitshow it's been post Covid and Ukraine, we can't forget the 9 years of stagnant wages, low growth, and austerity that preceded it. 

They should have been out on their arse in 2019, but Corbyn and it being a Brexit election bought them another 5 years they didn't deserve

With ukraine can you expand on your position? Do you think we shouldnt be funding it?

Yeah i agree about corbyn - but thats the labour partys fault for backing him. I think as bad as corbyn is even he would have beaten truss in a election. She was the worst ever PM without question and that donut chancellor

[bickster]

10 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

but i won't criticise them for the one good thing they did keeping people in jobs with furlough

1. Every single western democracy did this.

2. Sunak was known to be against it in cabinet. He got forced into it by Johnson.

Praising Sunak for furlough is ridiculous, he’s very fiscally libertarian. He’d quite happily have let people die and cut taxes for his mates

[Davkaus]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

With ukraine can you expand on your position? Do you think we shouldnt be funding it?

No, not at all, sorry, I didn't make my point clearly, I just meant that they've got a whole bunch of perfectly valid excuses of things that are out of their hands that have cost us a fortune, such as covid and Ukraine, but given things were also shit before that, I don't let them off the hook.

[Davkaus]

Just now, bickster said:

Praising Sunak for furlough is ridiculous, he’s very fiscally libertarian. He’d quite happily have let people die and cut taxes for his mates

He also famously got the job because he was happy to be a puppet to number 10 and install staff that Cummings wanted, so how much say he had in basically anything significant "he" did as Chancellor is very questionable, good and bad.

[Straggler]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

Anyone fancy a threesome?

  Hide contents

 

 

This is my constituency.  It makes it very hard to know where to put the x. It's been a Tory area for so long I'd be gutted to miss the chance to kick them out with a split anti Tory vote. Stop the tories site said lib dems last time I looked, bit it's Labour making the big gains.  I had the lib dems at my door yesterday basically advising me to do whatever the tactical voting websites say to do, but that is easy to say when they are in your favour. 

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

1. Every single western democracy did this.

2. Sunak was known to be against it in cabinet. He got forced into it by Johnson.

Praising Sunak for furlough is ridiculous, he’s very fiscally libertarian. He’d quite happily have let people die and cut taxes for his mates

Widely known by who? So you think boris was in favour and sunak wasnt? I find that hard to believe boris was a utter clown. Sunak was chancellor out if the two i think sunak probably more in favour of it.

This is such a left wing view. Never praise a right winger ever. There isnt much to praise the tories for but i think they protected peoples jobs they didnt have to implement furlough.

Oh im sure labour wouldnt just let people die either i mean they didnt take us in a pointless war under blair did they? It works both ways bicks.

But clearly we are not going to agree on this so ill just leave it there

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

14 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

The thing is mate you cant see covid wasnt as big if not worse.  I cant stand the **** tories and what they have done to this country but i won't criticise them for the one good thing they did keeping people in jobs with furlough

 

Brown would have been a hero if he introduced furlough at that time. He had the money to do it too 

Furlough wouldn't have been an appropriate response to the GFC though, nor was it even a mainstream process at the time as it was only something that happened to US Government employees during government shutdowns afaik. It also isn't something that's particularly viable economically compared to investment programs and the expansion of the welfare state, things that Brown was already doing, you can't really respond to each economic downturn by just giving people money or you're getting very close to UBI (which as a bleeding heart lefty I would actually support, it would need to be a permanent thing though). By the time Brown was booted out, unemployment was starting to shift it's way downwards and the country was on the path to recovery, only to reverse that under the Tories.

Plus, part of why Covid was so bad, and why we've had the worst recovery since covid of the G7 nations, is because of the Tories' overzealous and idealogical cuts which left vital infrastructure underfunded, overworked and ill-prepared. Sure furlough was a good thing and the right response to Government mandated lockdowns, but praising the Tories for it is kind of like thanking someone who's just set you on fire for pissing it out.

[Straggler]

How is anything about covid in the tories favour? 

Boris let the bodies pile high

PPE contract corruption 

Opening the schools for a day before shutting them again.

Downing street parties 

Even furlough was ballsed up. You may recall they stopped furlough for a bit before restarting it again. Do you know how many people who lost their jobs and businesses closed as they dithered? I know my wife was laid off in that gap like many others and the place she worked is gone still. They even got the thing they got right wrong.

And when they restarted furlough all those people that got laid off in the gap got nothing from that point onwards. 

Edited June 27 by Straggler
To add more things that the tories got wrong, but you have to stop somewhere I suppose

[PaulC]

4 minutes ago, Straggler said:

How is anything about covid in the tories favour? 

Boris let the bodies pile high

PPE contract corruption 

Opening the schools for a day before shutting them again.

Downing street parties 

Even furlough was ballsed up. You may recall they stopped furlough for a bit before restarting it again. Do you know how many people who lost their jobs and businesses closed as they dithered? I know my wife was laid off in that gap like many others and the place she worked is gone still. They even got the thing they got right wrong.

Yes their handling of covid was a disaster even criminal.

[sidcow]

32 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

This would be a fair point, but fortunately we can point to how much they were already **** everything up prior to 2020  

Yep, everything had gone to absolute shit before Covid. 

[Chindie]

2 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Yeah my mistake about balls i just checked that was incorrect. The joke side of it for me is pathetic from both of them. Making a mockery of people who are struggling while they having a laugh at our expense.

I think neither party is fit to govern. I do think starmer is going to put taxes up and i also think he wont be able to deliver on his promises on getting a better deal for brexit, getting the wl backlog down and the immigrants crisis. He has failed to say how he will do any of these things. 

I think he will improve getting gp appointments though. Under labour it was much better than this **** shit system the tories have done. If they revert back to the booking 7 days in advance way than that would certainly help that side of a big problem of thw country. 

As for rishi im not gonna even comment on him as he wont be PM come next week so its pointless but has shown he has been another failure PM

 

Also one thing i like about your posts chindie is i can of course see you are more labour than Conservative but you are not afraid to criticise labour when they do shit. I respect that.

I have no affiliation with either party. Im dissatisfied with both

Thanks. I try to be true to my values, and I don't support anyone - no party has ever had my vote and they're unlikely ever to.

I'm no fan of Tories, or anything on the right socially really. One of the reasons I'm quite so unhappy with Starmer's Labour is basically their position boiling down to Tories are right but they're incompetent. And obviously theres other things - going back on every position they've ever held... And perhaps the thing that cuts the deepest, the deeply nasty and cynical undermining of the party in a power grab. 

I am right-er than many 'lefties' on some matters, so any desire to label me as a commie is off the mark  but all the societal shit that's infected discourse from the right is evil.

[bickster]

46 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Widely known by who?

Pretty much anyone with an avid interest in politics

This is the second lockdown which is widely documented but it’s been mentioned by a few people he was arguing in cabinet against the first

Quote

This week we have entered a second national lockdown, which has forced the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to U-turn on extending the furlough scheme. Both these outcomes the chancellor did not want and doggedly resisted for weeks. He led the group of ministers in cabinet who opposed the circuit-break when Labour backed it last month. And he fought Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, over the compensation package for those affected by tighter coronavirus restrictions.

Guardian

Then there was the eat out to help the virus out scheme… Sunak was absolutely awful during the pandemic. Yes Johnson was awful but Sunak would have been worse by a long way.

[bickster]

59 minutes ago, Straggler said:

This is my constituency.  It makes it very hard to know where to put the x. It's been a Tory area for so long I'd be gutted to miss the chance to kick them out with a split anti Tory vote. Stop the tories site said lib dems last time I looked, bit it's Labour making the big gains.  I had the lib dems at my door yesterday basically advising me to do whatever the tactical voting websites say to do, but that is easy to say when they are in your favour. 

Yep, that’s too close to call, it’s one of those you have to go with your personal choices I think just because there is no clear cut obvious tactical vote

[ml1dch]

 

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

 

That’s been going on for a couple of weeks now I think.

[Wainy316]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Not sure why you think that’s a three way fight. Labour not going to win in a month of Sundays. LibDem is the tactical vote for sure. I’d also be prepared to put money on the LibDems winning, but I doubt the odds would be good, clear favourites I think

That whole Oxford / Thames corridor is is possibly going to be a sea of orange on the map. It’s all very much middle class / remainer territory and the LibDem message is really resonating with all the demographic there.

Last poll I saw had all 3 parties between 27 and 31%.  Labour and Lib Dem have also traded off second place (in what was a safe Tory seat) over the last two elections.