To think the Tories must actually want to loose the next election?

Notably the labour cost of living plans went further, we’re better funded and were put before the house 6months and 1 week before the Tories eventually decided to take action to take the focus of Boris’s parties.

This is not unusual. Labour have put through several opposition day motions , notably on cost of living and pumping sewage into water and the Tories have either voted against or destroyed them with ridiculous amendments because ‘the can’t let the opposition take control of the order bill.’ Does not surprise me at all that there was one on the state of the school estate given how many questions they have asked about it over the year.

Even one or two of the not awful Tories have used the order bill excuse for voting against or abstaining against something sensible - Caroline Noakes I’m looking at you.

300 Tories who don’t give a stuff about children’s safety - I hope every parent and grandparent of school age children is taking note.

Bloodyhellfire

There was a vote on 23 May, Opposition Day, Safety of School Buildings, Bridget Phillipson, to let parent's know about the true state of school buildings

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-05-23/debates/DBFA5A9B-A6E5-4D39-93D4-1AFB02AE750F/SafetyOfSchoolBuildings

Not a single Tory or DUP member voted for this.

https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1548?byMember=True#noes

There has been dangerous concrete above our children's heads for five years and they have fixed precisely four (4!) schools.

4!

No Tory can possibly expect to be re-elected after that.

There will be schools in every constituency just like there is shit in every river in every constituency.

Christ, the next lot have got an uphill task.

Tired of facts @Lastchancechica?

You don't have to announce your departure here @Lastchancechica, it isn't an airport.

I am bored now of this echo chamber and the sunlit uplands have literally just arrived ☀️

And all the others. I think the thing we can all take away from covid is that having no assets and no experience in a sector is no barrier to receiving vast sums of money from the government.

It's with all those Brexit benefits

How's that explanation of Labour's eye-watering woke agenda coming along?

And the eight years’ worth of incorrect polls?

We made it, unscathed
Deluded.

How's that explanation of Labour's eye-watering woke agenda coming along?

Michelle Mone Constructions?

Although I suspect most of those people are now busy setting up structural engineering and building companies.

A lot of the covid money was squandered. Largely into offshore accounts of Tory mates rather than doing anything useful. And we could have been paying it back as longer term loans which would have been better economically. But for reasons that I’m not sure of (mostly political or optics I suspect) we decided not to.

There’s always the option of getting the money back from the people we paid it to who didn’t fulfil their contractual obligations but for some reason we’re not that bothered.

Yes. Business has to use it. There is no guarantee that this will happen either. Trade deals do not mean money comes immediately. If the terms are not good people don't bother with using them.

UK CPTPP deal will boost GDP by 0.08% over 10 years.

Well woth the celebrations

As a life long Tory voter I agree the current iteration is a total shit show. However, given the Tories did what most people wanted during Covid - furlough and lockdowns - which is where a huge part of that spend comes from, it's very rich for any Labour person to accuse them of squandering / plundering money.

@Peregrina - the other thing is the UK is a services economy. The most flexible and facultative services deal is....

The EU 27. Nothing better out there.

A lot of Brexit fantasies are about the UK moving goods and manufacturing. We will never compete with the majority of countries on that. While we can have specialized manufacturing this is a small element of our economy and there are no plans it seems to expand it.

Our tariffs on a WTO basis are already low. The UK is therefore not offering very much in terms of good based deals.

Country urgently needs a proper economic strategy. It does not have one

I don't think it's that the Tories want to lose the next election but I do think they expect to.

They'd be fools to think they can give us massive debt, massive spending and crumbling infrastructure plus diminished services plus bigger mortgage payments and shit ok the beaches and expect to be given 5 more years.

The thing about trade deals is that they have to be good to be used. The EU deal was very good. You would not find a better more comprehensive agreement.

We have swapped that for barriers to services and goods. Costly ones too with an immediate market.

Strategically looking towards the Asian Pacific rim is not a bad idea, but CPTPP is not anything like as good as the trade arrangements we had as an EU member either in economics or facilitation of trade.

Nobody has ever secured a comprehensive trade deal with India. The reason is that India do not believe in policy terms of free trade. The UK will have to swallow visa concessions and social security payments to get a partial deal. But again, the chances of this happening are slim. Trade is an area where there is a lot of puff in the press, but little delivery. India can make the UK wait.

Raab didn’t even know where Dover is.

The U.K.is now set to pivot to the East.

With global warming being a reality, the idea of using air and sea miles to do most of your trade literally half way across the word is one of the Brexiters more stupid ideas. But then Gove, Johnson, Farage and Co probably don't realise that these places are thousands of miles away. After all Raab didn't know how much trade went through Dover, and yet on a clear day, you can see the French coast from there.

This is a self evident fact.

And it's so humiliating.

But those who still supports Brexit now, despite the evidence are the ultimate in believing things that aren't true so they choose to believe something different and leave reality to the rest of us.