Kemi badenoch and Robert jenrick through to final

[Hunnymonster1]

So the new leader of the tory party will be a woman that wants to cut maternity pay who loves the culture war rubbish and Robert who painted over a cartoon in an immigration centre. Who wants us out kf the echr because who need human rights lol
The conservative party is now like the reform party them two are very much to the right of the party
So with that choice I can't see tories getting back in in 5 years time. Most people are on the centre doesn't bother me as I loath tories but we do need an opposition

I know this has already been discussed upthread but it's actually quite a fantastical idea that Kemi would win at at General Election having jumped through whatever hurdles she needed to become party leader. The tories could offer everyone a £100 bonus on their birthday - paid straight into their account with no questions asked but it's really not going to happen. In order to get to where she is she's had to reconcile with many things to keep her world view stable. Many Black women (to varying extents) do a similar thing day to day, of course not at Kemi's level. And that's probably because we know it's a fantastical idea to begin with.

People wanted change but there was little enthusiasm for Starmer because he wasn't offering it. They won because the Tories were done for.

The only real changed offered in recent years was Corbyn and the same right wing media crucifying Labour now, destroyed him. For what it's worth he was a poor leader but he inspired people by offering genuine change.

Yeah I agree as I say refer to my comment that people are stupid

The thing is Corbin although yes I voted labour when he was the leader and yes I like a lot of his message when you look back you realise his views on Russia etc was wrong. To close to Iran etc in my view point. The reality is we need allies and he was a bit to all peace and cum bye aye and that’s not reality . Yes the right wing press absolutely attacked him they did but he wasn’t right for pm looking back

I think Kemi Badenoch will be very popular with Tory voters. Not sure there's enough of them left to make a difference at the next GE though.

I'm sure she'll be popular with the membership. I don't think she's at all likely to win back lifetime Tories who voted Liberal Democrat or who stayed at home in the last election. I'm not sure if she'll be able to tempt back those who shifted to Reform.

How do you know ? Do you actually believe that ? A government with no plan ? Really ? Unlike Brexit which was a few scribblings on the back of a fag packet.
Moan about Labour as much as you want and make dire predictions but the fact is the Tories were even more disorganised and gung ho with the country’s finances and future. Liz Truss yes ? Johnson ?

I have to agree. He was an excellent tubthumper, he could really draw the crowds and he did get the traditionally disengaged younger demographics interested in politics. Indeed Labour under his watch achieved a 40% vote share in 2017. But as was demonstrated all too brutally, that isn't enough to win a general election in the FPTP system.

The problem was that these votes were concentrated in the big cities but many of those didn't help the party in terms of seats overall, so a lot of those extra votes were wasted under FPTP. In the 'red wall' seats, it was a very different picture as most young people with any ambition had left these mostly small towns for better prospects in cities and university towns, thus leaving behind an even higher proportion of disgruntled ex-Labour voters who were more amenable to the messaging of UKIP/Farage/Johnson. Dominic Cummings was all too aware of this and exploited it ruthlessly.

Under FPTP, it's not just how many votes you get but about where those votes are cast.

Besides that, Corbyn unfortunately didn't have the leadership skills required to get the job done. The PLP and the party machine were working against him from the very outset (as outlined in the Forde report) and he was too weak in dealing with his enemies, which was his undoing.

And little did people (the vast majority of people anyway) know that a global pandemic was around the corner. Had it been a Labour government in power in 2020, it would have been severely challenged. I don't think there would have been the overt corruption of 'VIP lanes' etc but I think there may have been even more resistance from the tinfoil tendency than there was under the Tories.

@KimDealsBass absolutely. People say they want change and decent services etc but in reality they’re not prepared to sacrifice anything. I’ve seen posters moaning about the government ending the doctors strike aka giving in to the unions but otoh criticising the docs for taking action in the first place and risking the lives of ill vulnerable patients.

I was replying to your comments about the unions. I think it's important to have unions for all sorts of reasons, but to give them everything they ask for financially because they donate heavily to the party is not OK

How much does the BMA contribute to the Labour Party?

The BMA is not and never has been affiliated with the Labour Party.

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that unions don't contribute to the Labour Party?

They brought resolution to the strikes. You’d rather have the strikes continuing indefinitely ? And I think your suggestion that they capitulated purely because they’re in cahoots financially with the union movement is a bit off. Maybe the previous government was quite happy to allow them to continue in the same way Thatcher let the miners self sabotage. A labour government just cannot win. The amount of scrutiny the tories got was tiny in comparison because the right wing media is hugely supportive of them and that is far more worrying than union donations.

Some unions do

Others like the BMA contribute nothing - and arguably got the best deal

Anyone other than Boris Johnson, Labour or Tory, would have acted quicker and taken the virus seriously from the beginning. Almost anyone else would not have had the parties in Downing Street either.

At least 20,000 fewer people would have died and the impact on mental health would have been less because restrictions would have been for a shorter period of time, especially in person schooling.

There is no evidence for this whatsoever.

We can have no idea how other governments or leaders would have reacted or what the outcomes of the measures they might have taken would have been.

The parties scandal was ultimately about lying to parliament, not about disease control.

Johnson was a total liability and Tory behaviour in the pandemic was outrageous. Surely you can't deny this. Your average person would have more decency and altruism so it is not too much of a leap to believe that others would have handled it better.

Affiliated unions do. The BMA isn't one.

There’s loads of unions not affiliated with Labour. RCN and FBU for example.

I’m certain of one thing - had Labour had been responsible for lockdown, the Nightingale Hospitals, furlough payments, Eat Out to Help Out etc, the hypocritical right-wing press would still be attacking them for it now. They would be gleefully “reminding” everyone that Labour ran a totalitarian regime and crashed the economy with their irresponsible spending.

I think you may have misunderstood my last point in that post. I certainly do agree that a Labour government would have handled the administrative side of managing the pandemic far better; I'm thinking more about the cooperation of the public side of things.

Johnson was broadly given a free pass by the media during the early phases of the pandemic despite him spending much of it on freebie holidays and shirking COBRA meetings etc. But a Corbyn government would have had a barrage of hostile media from the very outset. It's been bad enough with Starmer's centrist government - imagine how much more vicious the media would have been with a Corbyn government.

With that barrage of hostility, I think a lot more people would have resisted the "hands - face - space" messaging from the outset, because it would be seen as much more of a party political issue. I could envisage certain types of people refusing to mask up because they didn't like Corbyn. It was bad enough as it was with the tinfoil hat types (including Jeremy's brother Piers) and I think it would have been worse with many Tory types refusing to cooperate too from the outset.

On the other hand, I think a Corbyn government would have brought in temporary Universal Basic Income, which would have been a fairer system than furlough which left millions of people getting nothing (I know lots of small business people who had this problem). But I really do think we'd have had a really hostile media politicising covid against Labour and getting people not to cooperate with masks, social distancing and vaccines.

Headline pay rises were totally misleading and papers like the DM and Express know this.

The 5.5% pay rises were recommended by the pay review bodies... are you suggesting we shouldn't have paid nurses teachers military this amount?
Their unions - military don't have one - were demanded far more, personally, i'd have awarded far more, all 3 sectors have huge staffing issues, which cost billions in agency staff..... & poor service levels.

Train drivers got a 3 year deal, works out at approx 5% p.a.

Junior Doc's got 13% back dated, and another 8% going forward, about half what they originally asked for.... still 20% down on comparable pay in 2008.