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

He certainly did. Some purge that retained Dorries, Fabricant and Bone and kicked out Kenneth Clarke.

Rory Stewart has just written a book about his time as an MP. It really is about the decline in public life and deals with some of the personalities behind Brexit. Overall it shows why we are in such a mess and how we have declined as a nation contrary to the promises made by Brexit supporters.

Ps....yes I know Sunak actually signed the Windsor framework but the point still stands. He'd have a lot more wriggle room if ppl like Soubry , Grieve , Stewart were still on board.

Bozo got rid of a lot of actual Conservatives and replaced them with Brexit fanatics from the ERG etc. They were loyal to him but hadn't the faintest idea how to run a government.

So , when reality intruded with sensible compromises like the Windsor Agreement , the tantrums were bound to begin.

Johnson purged the party of anyone who wasn't prepared to swear absolute loyalty to him.

I think they are finished for a decade. If Labour get a large majority it will take that long to overturn it. And the crumbs that will be left after the next election (given the current quality of the cabinet) will make that quite the challenge.

Can't agree on Johnson. I think in the long term it was a mistake. Awkward those people may have been but they were clever and high quality in many cases. What replaced them was far worse, and we see the results today. Johnson doesn't like a challenge and yet our political system relies on that largely. The Brexit Government has not delivered but look at the people who got the jobs! Awful.

The one thing Boris did right was purge the party of the awkward squad of perpetual in-fighters

But he didn't did he ? As with everything else he "achieved" it turned out to be smoke and mirrors.

It is a plan - if they wreck Labour's spending plans, then Starmer will achieve little whilst being either expensive or broke, then Labour will once again look in disarray with yet another iffy/unsuccessful term in government behind them.

But if the Tories keep in-fighting, then they scupper their chances.

The one thing Boris did right was purge the party of the awkward squad of perpetual in-fighters, and then one his big majority. I was quite interested in what a united, purposeful party might achieve. But that came to naught, and by the time covid restrictions were ending it was the bad old ways again.

It's not much of a plan if the swing is so large they cannot come back in five years. That is what it looks like.

@AdamRyan - I like Crace but I find what he writes about here depressing. I don't expect people to be saints in public life but this neglect of children is baked into Tory politics, has been for some time. I would like a triple lock on education budgets. We are taking the wrong path. When Labour win I hope for a fundamental reset in terms of what government spending is for.

Not that there will be much money, but what there is needs to go on the young. That is our future.

As the schools concrete crisis continues, we've looked at government spending on education infrastructure (including school buildings) by the Tories since 2010 and by Labour before then.

https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1698940507517567470?s=20

Quite likely, as part of a longer plan. Let the opposition in to inherit a bottomed out economy so they cannot perform miracles and make people's lives better. Then in five years time come back in with promises that the electorate will swallow and be back to continue looting what's left for their rich sponsors.

UNLESS the next administration bring in a better voting system than what we have already. Starmer has already ruled this out.

Re schools. labour had a program in 2010 to rebuild 700 schools, that the Conservative government pulled in 2011 That was Building Schools for the Future.

For details see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_Schools_for_the_Future?fbclid=IwAR2XIXnXgvUx7WyeqJiMnQVbVTZoqoN7hXjeRW8-1uhTC5T3ktUAeAjlC5I#:~:text=The%20BSF%20programme%20provided%20funding,BSF%2C%20new%2Dbuild%20schools

You might enjoy this anxioys

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/04/rishgpt-offers-a-word-salad-of-nonsense-on-school-buildings-crisis

Today I'm just interested to see if Keegan keeps her fucking good job.

I should think so, because Sunak has his own problems, but this government is finished by its own deeds.

Ugh. I can't quote any more. That was to chica

Interesting interpretation.
I think its impossible to know what people think of labour, when the media is constantly taken up with Conservative own goals.

The RAAC is a massive own goal because one of the first things the Conservatives did in 2010 was cancel Labour's school building project as "too expensive".

Labour (and all the other parties) don't have to do anything at the moment other than 🍿and maybe make a comment about the conservatives mess ups. Must be quite a fun position.

Arguably it would be a more risky strategy for any party to say anything about their policies as it would give the Conservatives something to talk about, other than their own implosion.

I'm enjoying it all very much.

Any chance you can tell us what Labour's eyewatering woke agenda is?

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/09/01/rishi-sunak-government-institutionally-corrupt-poll-voters/

Majority of voters believe Sunak's Government is "institutionally corrupt" - Just 15% disagree - 57% say corruption has got worse over recent years

Given the Labour Party are twenty points ahead across the polls before this concrete mess and even more popular with women than men, it looks like they doing quite well with this demographic.

I think you are all getting a bit ahead of yourselves. To put it very mildly one might ask why people are not more enthused about a possible new administration?

Why the public have big reservations trusting Stammer? Why are they not flocking to Labour? I mean if not now, when? Because things are pretty grim right now so why such a decidedly luke warm response to Labour?

The truth is that people just don’t like them. Not even the red/blue wall voters. No one buys the Islington elite as representing anything but their own limited myopic narrow view of the world. Angela will be wheeled out as one of the people but we see what Labour is today. It’s a fractured party with no idea how to grow the economy, improve services and make anything better. They are out to settle scores.

We have a zombie government, every day is like groundhog day. You can bet every sitting day will be shorter & shorter, Suella Braverman will continue to spout her venom from the despatch box, I'm fully expecting her head to start spinning & fly off any minute. Rishi the Roland Rat lookalike can only say "stop the boats, halve inflation & grow the economy" on repeat. The sooner they are gone, the better.

I can't wait for the day they get kicked out of Downing Street. I'm fed up of Rishi parroting that the country is in a better state than it was when they got back in in 2010. The country can't afford to have another Tory government. After yesterday's reshuffle, Labour really do look like a government in waiting. Roll on the General Election.

I take back my earlier foolish Gillian Keegan supporting comment.

A reliable source has informed us that in early February, two months after the risk level was raised to high, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan remarked, “We just need to keep the lid on this for two years and then it’s someone else’s problem.“

eastangliabylines.co.uk/keegan-keeps-the-lid-on-raac/

True indeed. He took Britain out of the world's richest market because he's a old commie in a time warp.

Give it 5 years and people will believe this.

• I don't think that. I think this is them governing to their values and competency*

I do too.

This

I can't argue with that @TooBigForMyBoots .

You'd be a fool to vote for 5 more years of this.
^
And surely we've only got about 17 million voters who are that easily manipulated? ^

And they are spread out over hundreds of constituencies.