Mumsnetters voting Reform

[Illjustplayostrich]

Mumsnet mothers have always leaned Labour. Now Reform is ahead

https://www.thetimes.com/article/dbd39087-465c-4587-9eaa-292606ffb775?shareToken=a99daa444e8bc0f9444cca2bf01f3851

I'm slightly startled by this. I'm a centrist, slightly more right leaning perhaps but frankly I'm open to any government who will get a firm grip on the public finances and go about growing the economy in a sustainable way. My impression of this site is that it's definitely more left leaning and and Reform enthusiasts tend to get shouted down. Personally, I think we should be talking about them a lot more as it's highly likely they will form part of the next government.

My impression is that they are promising the earth but don't have people with the necessary skill set to make that happen. I really worry that they will get voted in and find out that they can't fix all the problems within 18 months, leading to yet more disillusionment amongst voters.

It is different. Look at Wales. You’d think Labour would let winning if the past elections were an indicator of the next one.

I find it amazing Labour suffering in Wales. They're the party of an ever-expanding NHS and public sector. Labour employs practically 60% of Welsh citizens, yet the voters are about to snub Welsh Labour.
The irony is off the charts.

No Lib Dems in your wounded Labour coalition option?

Why Lam and not Badenoch as Deputy PM in your other option?

Madam, I did mention Davey in my line up of unmentionables.
Hate to mention it, lol.
Lam? Because either Badenoch won't do a deal with Farage (genuine antipathy between the two), or the Tories will be so wiped out that she'll be jettisoned and the Reform-friendly Lam will be the better fit post-GE as Reform become the dominant force on the Right.

Poor guy even when listed he’s not noticed ;

So you did - missed it/him, sorry and sorry Ed.

Lol!

Are those his pronouns?

Ah made me laugh

Nothing else about Eddie is remotely funny.

Meh 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't disagree about the cost of driverless trains and the ancillary platform technology. DLR was constructed for maximum automation, and seems to work well enough so it strikes me as a pity that it's not being extended a line at a time.

However, back on planet politics, the argument is still about tax and benefits. Retired, I still pay roughly £5k in taxation pa, as does my DH. We have SP but otherwise depend on the DC pot we built during our working years to keep us afloat for possibly another 20 years. As my DDad is now 92 and my mum made almost 90, that means we need to make our pension savings last at LEAST 25 years, before we consider that one or both of us might need residential care. That is any which way you do the maths a lot of capital.

Barriers would be £1m per platform, 600+ platforms for the whole system.

I hope you live a long and healthy life but parental longevity is not a guarantee of this, nothing like it.
Plus as you age, you'll do less, eat less, heat more.

If your paying 5k in tax each, then you ve household income of well over 70k..

Now you know that would be up to Ed.

Look, I totally get the frustrations about the pronouns fixation, etc., but I’m terrified at the prospect of living in a country where the right-wing media use having pronouns in your bio as evidence as to why it’s acceptable to shoot an unarmed woman in the face at close range (there’s another thread on that specific incident, so I’m not going there). Potentially coming to us soon with our very own Temu Trump, former I’m a Celeb contestant, Nigel Farage.

I'm not making any moral comparison, this incident for the first time is making me reconsider some aspects of Trump doctrine.
But I'm still bitter how far the Overton Window was moved left so that Trump was allowed to thrive.
Yes, an innocent woman killed by ICE, but how many women were killed or assaulted by the approx 8-9m undocumented aliens who skipped over the border during the Biden presidency?
Farage can thrive in the UK with an increasing harsh regime narrative because the left have never taken illegal immigration seriously (and the Tories took their eyes off the ball).
Ditto gender ideology. Screams of bigotry and phobia by the left, what did they think ordinary women were going to react after being told any dissent was wrong.
I have no deep admiration for Trump or Farage, but the left in both US and UK (and useless Tories) have enabled both of them to set the political weather.

Blaming the left for the rise of fascism is a tired old trope.

Unless you think all the people who support Trump and Farage are so brain dead they will vote for them just to "get back" at lefties, it doen't wash.

People have minds of their own and are actively choosing their political direction.

Agree that the Democrats certainly helped Trump to thrive, in many ways - although that is by no means the full picture. And yes, I can absolutely see how gender ideology has had that impact.

What makes me angry is the hypocrisy of the men so-called ‘protecting our women and girls’ when domestic violence rates increase significantly every time England’s football team play (even higher if they lose), the 2 in 5 arrested in the summer 2024 riots after Southport who had previous for domestic violence, etc. Reform saying they’ll return female Afghan asylum seekers to the Taliban. Reform’s growing links with the Christian right - I’m convinced they will come for abortion rights.

Ultimately though, I am also swayed by the men I know/know of who are vocal Reform supporters - the menacing ones who think it’s ok to intimidate female migrants, but also the older Little Englanders who think Bernard Manning was a comedy genius and I wouldn’t want anywhere near my teenager daughter. (Not that I’m saying this is all/typical of Reform supporters, just my own personal experience).

No party is free of misogyny and abuse of females, but I think Reform fundamentally is regressive and we should be very concerned about their plans for legislation changes.

I took it as a joke re the pronouns.

There’s a lot of push / pull in politics and rn I’d say some systems are being strained and people are pushing back on them.

And calling anything to the right of Theresa May as fascist is also a tired argument.
Just like the right call left being groomers and pro Great Replacement and the left call anyone who even think of voting Reform or Trump as fascists, these tropes are tired for a reason.

And those on the left gleeful to harass and abuse GC women, Jews etc. Humans display an awful lot of terrible traits, and with politics becoming hyper tribal, this will only get worse.
Too bad that Sunak, Biden, Starmer couldn't make life better for their people to blunt the appeal at the fringes.

I didn't call anyone a fascist. I did say that fascism is on the rise. I do think Trump is a fascist though, tbf.

I also took it as a joke and your comment on poor Ed being overlooked even when on the list also made me smile - which is very welcomed this week.

My reply was about my general despair at what is happening in the news and world politics.

You were very quick to set aside my point that the left (and frankly incompetent Tories) created the conditions for Trump and Farage. You seem to think they exist in a vacuum where they've popped out of nowhere, to drive the narrative pushing America and Britain towards fascism.
My take is that voters look at the Boriswave, 8-9m illegals over the border during Biden, the wall to wall imposition of woke dogma across the West, the cancerous growth of cancel culture, the immiseration of millions via the economics so beloved by Biden, Sunak, Starmer. And they're piping up.
You see fascism 2025, likely Russian influence on Brexit, Putin stooges in WH and maybe in No.10 in 2029. I see a left liberal establishment incl Democrats and Labour, and frankly unfit for purpose Tory party, unwilling to listen.

It has been a heavy week I’ll give you that. But I think we’re seeing a pretty seismic shift due to systems that were set up rightly a while ago starting to strain. I think we’ll see it get worse tbf as people push back and vote for change.