Which issues are the ones likely to swing a general election result ?

[Georgeduhamel]

Seems to be a big difference in real life outside MN and MN.
Most people I know are frustrated by the state of public services and the lack of money despite sky high taxes. Local schools are falling apart, NHS non functioning despite best efforts of the staff and our town centre is now reminiscent of an East European backwater in the 1970s with barely any shops and homeless folk on every corner. We also have a particularly inept Tory MP so I anticipate people will want to get rid of him.
Which things will affect your vote ? What’s most important ? In some respects I guess it depends on your personal situation and where you live. Leafy affluent home in Surrey life might not have changed, council estate in Rochdale you might be more eager to get rid of the current lot in government.
On MN, maybe understandably, gender ideology and labour’s uncertain stance seems to be a hot topic but does that trump the cost of living crisis or the lack of GP appointments or 24 hour delays in A/E ?
Fwiw I’m in agreement with most of the GC arguments but that won’t influence my vote for Labour.

Can I just remind everyone that the discussion needs to center around "small boats", "Rwanda scheme" and a theme that things will be better under Rishi in 2025.

(Also who forgot to refill the Nespresso machine ?)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/17/record-long-term-sickness-bodes-ill-for-uk-economic-growth

If anyone votes Tory, after what they've done to the Primary Care Service, Health Visiting and Mental Health Services, they should have their voting rights taken away.

Don't forget "back to square one". Though that is tricky as people keep asking what square one actually is.

I won't vote for either Labour or Conservative. However, if you're inclined to focus on specific issues or events, there's plenty of material to consider from both.

I attribute a significant portion of the current malaise in Western nations to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - the point where we should have decoupled from US foreign policy.

I don’t get the fixation on denying people votes and stripping their voting rights away

Let people decide

Oh, but that is not the government's fault. It is GPs merrily signing off perfectly healthy people off as sick. They are all swinging the lead so they can get benefits and free cars.

(A certain poster will be by to utter this sort of bollocks soon, I suspect, so thought would get it out there to save them the trouble).

It's Vimes boots isn't it ? Spending a little more on ensuring people don't get too ill not to work is basic economics.

I know someone who has been off work for nearly 18 months after a pressure sore developed into an ulcer because the local health authority simply couldn't find the resource needed to treat it from the start, So for the sake of daily visits for a few week, the treatment is now a £200 a pop 3 times week vacuum device (40 used so far and I'm not adding the labour and visiting costs, nor the special bed needed) and no guarantee of success, and even then a much reduced capacity for work.

When the would turned ulcerous they had to go into hospital, where - due to lack of resources - the catheter they had fitted become blocked and nearly shut their kidneys down.

This is one single case. you can work out the implications of repeating it every 10 patients.

For some reason I feel much less anger about the plight of billionaires than I should.

Apparently some of the Tories standing down at the next GE are doing so not because they are worried about losing their seats, but because they are worried about winning them.

They don't want to be part of a decimated party populated mainly by absolute frothing nutjobs.

Vaguely reminiscent of a plotline of "The New Statesman" where Alan B'Stard MP, conned a certain to win Labour into throwing the election after a fake secret report that North Sea Oil was going to run out was circulated.

I see Laura Kuenssberg has been deployed to reassure the troops that Thursdays results are really due to the throng of Tory voters actually blocking the polling stations and being unable to vote. There will probably even be a clip of Farage saying that it was "like the Somme" except in blue, not red as Tory voters were unable to cross no mans land.

No. It's no good. No amount of trying to satirise this situation can reach the loft lunacy real life is. Any atheists out there may serious wish to reconsider if there actually is a God. I can't believe there isn't some malign humour behind life at the moment .....

I'd like to see a focus on children's services and all things related - health, education, social services. But none of them will. We should be ashamed of the conditions we have children living in in this country.

@CurlewKate - yes I understand that and understand your concerns.

However imo the current belief by most of the parties that human beings can actually change sex is an extremist view and long term will change society and bring untold damage to women and girls.

Absolutely this.

Housing and planning , we need a lot more houses built and a stop to right to buy Everyone agrees we need more houses ," but just not here " Houses need to be more affordable
Its never going to happen with all the gammons tucked up in their houses they bought years ago

The real issue with house builds is it never has the infrastructure that’s needed, school places, doctors, dentist, shops, bus services - jobs!

no point in mass house building unless people want to live and work there.

Housing estates are generally built in poor areas for poor people who then have to fight to work and get medical care - something politicians are not having to do.

Dont build houses, build communities.

@soupfiend “ I would also vote for any party that had a clear plan to re join the EU”

I’m with you on that…

The way my poor niece has had to fight to work in Spain in her mid 20s is utterly bonkers.

I expect the economy /cost of living and public services to be the most important factors.

Dont build houses, build communities

I agree with this so much. Also, build on brownfield sites first and re-generate our town centres by converting derelict shops to flats/houses. Stop building on greenfield sites because once it's gone, it's gone forever.

Some brownfield sites are too contaminated. We've built in one area, supermarkets, cinema, McDonald's, pizza hut, KFC, car, showroom, small office block.

It's not somewhere you could live in a home 24/7.

To a point, I agree that we need houses first. But the infrastructure is as important. You might buy a suitable house on a new estate, but if you require public transport to get to work and there isn't any, then you are stymied. DS can work wherever because he has a car and a license, and passed his test at 17 + five months, but he often takes a (senior) colleague to work.

I must add reintroduction of lay by and getting rid of smart motor ways

See the way Lambeth Council behave towards social housing tenants A Labour council

Cheap labour being imported (initially from E Europe after the EU expansion of 2004) to fill skill gaps and do the jobs we UK residents don't want to do, because they are hard physical and/or humble (like picking fruit, veg and flowers or care work) worked for a short while

I AM SO SICK OF HAVING TO REPEAT THIS IM GOING TO HAVE TO START A THREAD. This kind of thing written by people who have no idea what the rules are when you have to live in social housing are getting far too common @Papyrophile

a. Fruit picking veg picking etc a lot of which is LIVE IN work. If you rent social housing you have to actually fucking well live there. You are not allowed to live away from home for the length of time these employers want you to. If you want that you will need to give SH tenants more rights! But that would also mean giving them more rights to leave their home for other reasons

b. Gas safety checks fire door checks electric checks Surveys My tenancy agreement says i have to be home for these and no i cant get a friend or neighbour to do it for me.

c. the hatred there is for SH tenants ensures that some busybody would probably report the flat as abandoned if a tenant were to risk their tenancy by taking this job.

d. i have mentioned SH tenants because they will be the most likely group expected to take these jobs yet their hands are tied and they cant And even if they wont perhaps they want a life after the working day (just like home owners have You know the ones who arent expected to do these jobs instead of sharing a berth with a stranger.

@Scarletttulips

"The real issue with house builds is it never has the infrastructure that’s needed, school places, doctors, dentist, shops, bus services - jobs!

no point in mass house building unless people want to live and work there.

Housing estates are generally built in poor areas for poor people who then have to fight to work and get medical care - something politicians are not having to do.

Dont build houses, build communities"

++++

But it's a chicken and egg issue. Do you build houses first and then wait for the infrastructure/ services to follow or do you build the infrastructure first and then not use it until enough houses have built to use it.

Unfortunately if you build infrastructure such as school, doctor surgeries, shops, bus services but without enough houses / people then they will close because it is unprofitable.

Whereas if you build houses / people first then yes people have to put up with a lack of infrastructure/ services for a few years but eventually there will be shops buses etc because it is profitable to do so.

So in short unfortunately it has to be either houses first then infrastructure or even better both at the same time but to do that you really do need a lot of new houses in one area to make it work.

The road I grew up was built like many in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds in the 1930s. It had a school halfway along that was finished and attended before the rest of the road was finished. Our next door neighbours bought their house before the school was started.

But that was what they did in the 1930s. Built millions of houses. Not farted around with interest rates.

@JenniferBooth Apologies, I didn't mean to offend: I live in a rural area and there's a big agricultural and horticultural sector always advertising for pickers etc. In my youth, women (mostly) picked flowers and lifted new potatoes because that was all the work there was locally. Of course, it would be illogical to expect SH tenants in cities to work miles away in the country for months at a time. There are seasonal agricultural schemes for the busiest months of planting and harvest, with accommodation provided, but the numbers are capped.

Sorry @Papyrophile I probably overreacted Its because i hear it so much