General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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And every general election I have said this. But the british public on the whole are idiots
Same everywhere, including Ontario where I’m from. People complained nonstop about what our Premiere did to the province and then there was the lowest turnout in election history and he got elected to another majority. Something like 50% of people didn’t show up and we had mail in ballots, couldn’t be easier. Embarrassing.
It's the same in Portugal. Everything has become shit(tier) after 8 years of centre-left PS, but vote intentions are still leaning towards them.
Democracy is a beautiful thing: people get exactly what they deserve.
Except the UK doesn't have democracy. It has first past the post voting, which does not reflect the will of the people and leads to millions of votes being wasted
I disagree there. People can only work from the information they are presented with. The problem is with the establishment and how they protect their own.
That was true in the stone age. Today everyone has access to all the information and they can make up their minds. If they don't - it's on them.
You have to be pretty naïve to think everyone takes the time to get good information. Murdoch has built an empire on the exact opposite of this premise. He seems to be doing ok out of it.
Yeah I'm sorry but if you're getting your media from Murdoch then that's on you. The fact that him and his publications are essentially propaganda for the conservative party is public knowledge. If you haven't absorbed that from the ether then you're a particularly unaware person.
That is precisely my point. There are plenty who do not have that understanding. Old people especially do not have a clue about alternative media sources. The Tory premise is to rely on ignorance. This is why they tell so many lies in PMQs.
British media was something that the world relied on for an honest opinion with honest facts. Not everyone has caught onto the corrupt that is in it presently. To stand and say well they should know better is just plain crass. We need media reform, but until we get it then we will have people who are swayed by fake news.
That's on people who "don't have time".
When a country is pushing people to work multiple jobs to make ends ofc they do not have time. What a selfish, moronic thing to state.
It's FPTP. Only 43.6% voted for this. The majority didn't vote for this.
That’s because it has, but it’s nice that people seem to be realising that at least.
It’s the first step (of many) to getting stuff back on track.
I hope the momentum of this lasts for longer than 3 days after the election
All utterly predictable, but British voters couldn’t collectively bring themselves to vote for Corbyn, so …
Shame Corbyn wouldn't step down so someone that wasn't disliked by so many voters could step in
Why would he step down when he had a pretty significant mandate from Labour party members to be their leader?
I think Corbyn was a bad person to lead the Labour party (I agree with his policies but he just wasn't leadership material), but IMO we should be absolutely hammering the electorate for not holding their noses up and voting the guy that wasn't Boris effing Johnson.
I agree with you that he was a bad leader. That is a failure on Labour's part as a whole, and on Corbyn's by not taking the initiative to say "You know what, it's clear this party is not going to make headway with the current leadership. Let's find a new leader that is liked by the people and get Labour in for the people."
Unfortunately the cycle continues where Tory's are fucking things up as we speak so that when Labour likely get in they will spend years putting the pieces back together. Doesn't matter who wins, the public lose.
In this case liked by people means actually does his bloody job and offers a genuine opposition to the conservative party rather than just going "hey Brexit seems like a great idea" and giving team remain essentially no real major political supporters.
The leaked report a couple of years ago showed the Blairite wing of the party would rather actively sabotage the party than have Corbyn in.
Corbyn was voted in by the Labour membership twice, the elected Blairite MPs didn't like that and decided to work against what their party membership wanted.
Couple that with the left-wing-hostile British media, and he never stood a chance, despite being at some points entirely capable of being elected, if not for the constant sabotage.
Corbyn could never an election though? So, I really do not see your point. The perverse argument is that Corbyn and his allies were also sabotaging the Labour party. They were nothing that was beneficial to the party or constructive in encouraging people to vote for Labour. Some of Corbyn's policies were ofc good, but he carried so much baggage that he was untenable.
Corbyn's Labour was less than 2,500 votes from power in the 2017 election.
The article I linked in the above comment about the leaked report gives a lot of evidence of the Blairites in the party doing what they could to lose labour votes.
I think it's reasonable to conclude that without their sabotage, Labour likely would have won that election with Corbyn as leader.
Why are they still voting for them though? The propaganda engine is too strong?
People haven’t had a chance to vote in a general election since the Boris Johnson stepping down event. I doubt they will make it in next year, I imagine it could be decimation for the Tories
Did they really think that Boris Johnson was making (or could make) things better ? He was already prime minister at that time.
Did things really change between then and now ?
At the time, the idea of Brexit was still very popular, and Boris campaigned strongly on a promise to "get Brexit done." The UK population trusting Boris to follow through on finally securing a Brexit deal that had consumed the entire UK political discussion for three years and two Tory governments, plus the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn being insanely unpopular (which, depending on your point of view, is due to him being way too left, a political smear job by the right-wing UK media, or a combination of both), lead to Labour getting blown out in the 2019 election. So... the answer to your question is probably "sort of? Or at least they didn't trust Labour to not muck it up even worse."
Notably, I'm not talking about whether Brexit was actually a good idea to begin with, and the deal Boris wound up negotiating was not even the least-bad possible outcome. Since then, the UK population seem to have finally woken up to the idea that burning literally their biggest bridge for trade and shredding a sweetheart deal was perhaps not very wise. That, combined with Boris resigning in shame over flouting his own lockdown rules, followed by his successor Liz Truss tanking the economy in record time, and a steady drip-drip of scandals and Tory resignations over various "lesser" scandals, put us where we are now.
Yes.
They aren't voting for them. Only 43.6% are, but it's FPTP and they are not all voting for the same non-Tory.
Alternative title: People have eyes
If you cut funding to public services obviously they get worse this is not exactly a revelation. It's not that they don't know what they're doing they just don't care and they think they'll going to get away with it.
I sincerely hope they do not. I am following the tenacity that some are fighting Trump in the US. We could use some of that here.
I'm all for imprisoning Boris. He's committed enough crimes to have several life sentences by now, we just need to pick some of them.
My concern is that at the next election the Greens and the lib Dems will split the left-wing vote. So I sincerely hope that labor get their heads out of the their arse and present an actual manifesto with some actual substance to it. I'm concerned they won't.
If you listened to Ed Davey on the rest is politics last week, then you would have an impression that the LD has one main aim and that is to remove the Tories from power. I got the impression that they are willing to make sacrifices to achieve that. I do not think Labour are willing to bend as much.
Because it has & it's measurable in several different metrics.
TBF at this point the tories think the tories have gotten worse under the tories.
It's like woolworth's employees sticking around to the final day, so they can continue to steal sweets from the pick n mix.
Fuck the Torys.
Hard to disagree though.
No shit!
This "everything is worse" feeling is not something that has any link to any political party.
If life is percieved to get worse under any party's reign, whether to Tories as is the case now, Labour if they were elected, or SNP or whatever, they will blame whoever is in charge at the moment.
It's happening now, it's happening with the Democrats in the US, with Liberals in Canada, and to a lesser extent, the ruling coalition in Germany with AfD getting a surge thanks to people just generally discontent with life.
How much of that is their fault is something up for debate. It's not 100% their fault, and it also isn't 100% not their fault either. The same reactionary thoughts that are coming now from this here are giving the Conservative party in Canada a resurgence. I have a feeling most of you don't like that, but it's the truth.
When people are thinking life is getting worse, they will vote in whoever is not part of the current leadership.
Clearly you are not from the UK, or you would not be saying this. Every single service in the UK has deteriorated badly under this government. I don't mean feels badly, it is statistically much worse. The UK has been subjected to a heist where they have stolen billions from us. Google Michelle Mone, Sunak's family gain when he "gave" new oil licenses, the peerage being sold, the Russian influence, and the list goes on and on.
I would also like to point out just how LONG it's been a Tory government. Even though Torylite Blair gave the UK a "break", it has been the Tories specifically eroding any welfare the country has had over a long period of time.
Yes and no. This lot have been in power long enough that cans that were kicked down the road are being caught up with / balls kicked into the long grass are being found / chickens are home to roost.
You can see it with crises as diverse as public sector pay and RAAC in schools.
Lots of people really, really want transformative change, whether it's because of climate-ecological breakdown, rabid inequality, or just because they've been economically hard-pressed for years, and see no way out, even for their children.
They are moving to political extremes. Sometimes this means to the left - in much of Europe 10 years ago radical parties like Syriza and Podemos swept away the old centre-left - the Communist Party were in the radical left coalition government in Portugal (very successful, by the way); Sanders almost won the US Democrat nomination (and probably would have beaten Trump). But some also moved to the radical right - a slower burn, but perhaps now gathering more force.
It's true that this longing for real change often means rejecting, reacting against incumbents - but it goes deeper. A mere change of ruling party won't crack it - indeed, my own belief is that if say a 'moderate' Labour Party gets elected in the UK and doesn't radically change anything much, the reaction will be subsequent election of an even more extreme and empowered right than the Tories are now. Maybe that's what Biden has done in the US (though he has been much more radical than UK Labour promises - and has kept radicals like Sanders and AOC on board, which Starmer hasn't).