To feel the faint stirrings of hope of a Labour victory?

[KentMum2008]

Just that really? We all thought it was a done deal, T May was going to win by a landslide and we'd be crippled by another 5 years of Tory rule.

Fast forward a few weeks and a Labour victory doesn't seem like such a long shot.

AIBU to feel optimistic that Labour genuinely have a fighting chance? At the very, very least it might result in no overall majority, but the ultimate dream of a Labour govt, run by a true socialist isn't as impossible as previously though.

JC4PM!

mangomay And what? As far as I'm concerned, he spoke bollocks too. I'm not a hypocrite am I?

I am amazed at how many people I am coming across who are lifelong Conservative voters, but don't feel they can vote for them this time

That's the same with Labour and I've even heard LibDems say the same.

I think the elephant in the room is the corruption regarding the tax arrangements of the super rich and the big companies, which are condoned and colluded with by parliamentarians.

Alltheprettyseahorses not you personally, but the Tory party in general are hypocritical

I hope the Brexit vote will make people go out and vote again and I hope young people go out in their droves and vote as they might now realise how very important their say is.
I'm working in the public sector and it's embarrassing, no resources, no back up, no future.
You're not voting for people, you're voting for policies.
I hope Labour win. The tories will dismantle what's left of the public services. They don't need them. Their rich backers don't need them.

Piglet - truly sad reflection of British politics today. But at least it's not a dictatorship, right?

It's as though the labour voters are so squeaky clean they think the 'rich' are to blame and taxing them more will fix everything. The so called 'rich' quite often do not put a strain on state education, do not put strain in the NHS, they also put back into the economy by spending.

I am truly fed up with the fact we seem to think it is now acceptable for the benefits lifestyle to make it pointless trying to better yourself and get up everyday to go to work. I do not agree that the super rich should get away with shirking paying what they owe but frankly a whole class of people who actively choose to not work yet have enough money for what I consider luxuries - booze, cigarette, tattoos a plenty and be able to have several children. This needs addressing - I'm probably called middle class now but I know I work bloody hard for everything I have and I am fed up of seeing perfectly capable youngsters with no gainful employment because it's better to stay at home than start at the bottom in a job and try to better yourself. As a nation we now seem to accept this is just how it is.

Seahorses What about Tory arms deals to the Saudis, a state actively supporting ISIL?

www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html

PigletWasPoohsFriend
Not sure what you mean by SM

Yes that is just my group of friends and their group of friends or at least the ones i know of. It is also wherever else I look in the social media platform. The only place I am getting a positive spin on the Tory front is from the mainstream media.

I would like to know how many people you know personally who work for the nhs, education or on zero hours or indeed anyone who has and will be negatively effected by the Tories who are voting for them or are you just working on a law of averages.

Ackvavit I honestly find it bizarre that people have these views. These people you speak of living the "benefits lifestyle" will never own their own home, never have any kind of financial security, don't have any job skills so when they do need to find employment will struggle and have a very frugal lifestyle. Is that a lifestyle to be envied? I don't understand the dislike of these people. I feel sorry for them. I've been on benefits and it was soul destroying. I'm in a low paid job and I'm still £70 a week better off than I was on benefits.

BitchQueen90
It's because people have been told that they are scroungers and that they are where your taxes go.
Yes to a certain degree they are but more goes to pensions and no one causes the elderly scoungers

*calls

mangomay Of course they are. I don't think either of the 2 main parties deserve anyone's vote. I will admit to not knowing much about Tories because I would never vote for them anyway so don't feel the need to research policies etc. However, I did think I vaguely remembered a backlash about Johnson's comments after 7/7 - it seems that it was about his blaming of Islam www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1896095/Boris-Johnson-defends-stance-on-Islam-in-mayoral-debate.html but if there was criticism of his foreign policy statements it may just not have been archived; reports are almost non-existent possiby with it being so long ago. There was, however, strong Left criticism of Farage's blaming of Merkel (and by extension foreign policy) for the Berlin attacks www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage-faces-backlash-over-tweet-blaming-angela-merkel-for-berlin-terror-attack-a3424441.html (I ignored the comments underneath ). I suppose it doesn't matter what's said but whose side is saying it.

Ackvavit, you do realise that the on benefits poor serve a purpose in capitalism don't you?

They help keep wages low.

So even though it may be beyond you why a civilized society would give very basic support to its most disadvantaged members, perhaps you can comfort yourself with the idea that they do serve an economic purpose.

Zampa I suppose some form of arms deals would continue under Labour. Saudi Arabia will still exist: so will contracts; so will the need to scratch the country's back, metaphorically speaking, as a main ME ally; and recent human rights improvements will need to be nurtured.

Myother my post was a response to the suggestion that the UK would lose lots of high earners if Labour got in.

I was saying that I'd be more likely to leave in the Tories got in because I find it utterly intolerable that in one of the richest countries in the world we have increasing numbers of people sleeping on the streets, children who wouldn't have enough to eat if people didn't put tins in collection points in the supermarkets, a health service and education system on their knees and being circled by already wealthy vultures desperate to get their noses even further in to the trough (yes, I know that I've mixed my metaphors there).

My own tax position is pretty much neither here nor there. I'm very happy to pay more tax for properly funded services. Why on earth wouldn't any sensible human being be? My views about leaving are based on the the type of society that I want to live in.

I'm not planning to leave the UK, but I honestly don't know how anyone but the super rich are going to cope with another five years of Tory rule and the rest.

no one causes the elderly scroungers It's come pretty close over the last few years. We seem to be in a political cycle of 'us and them', with who is 'us' and 'them' changing by the day. I blame the Tories but it's been taken up by too many Labour supporters as well, or at least the more outspoken ones.

A Party's leader is responsible for managing and leading their party. They have to have a vision, people management skills, negotiation abilities (esp with Brexit), gravitas, nous, intellect and decency. All this will have an impact on how well they lead the country and represent us on the world stage.

It is therefore entirely rational to choose how to vote in part on what you think of the Party leaders.

Akvavit you are talking absolute shite. I see you have absolutely gobbled up the propaganda of these people on benefits living the life of riley, reproducing like nobodies business whilst getting yet another tattoo and going home to watch their massive televisions.

Are you not aware how much people on the fiddle cost the state? Compare it to big businesses who evade tax whilst making millions and paying their workers shitty wages, who then need working tax credits to top up their crap wage.

Please wipe the shit out of your eyes and educate yourself instead of repeating what you have heard other idiots saying.

It's interesting watching it all unfold. I think May has alienated a certain type of Tory voter, a fair few of whom are pro-immigration, anti-Brexit and anti-state intervention. So they don't really have anywhere to go.

Obviously a lot of voters are unhappy with what they see as Corbyn's decidedly left agenda and the fact that he's perceived as being soft on terrorism, and probably a bit weak generally. But I think the one advantage Corbyn has is that he seems so much more human than May. The media attack on him has been vicious but the past few weeks have given him the chance to address his audience directly, which is what he's best at.

May, on the other hand, is really like a robot, uttering the words "strong and stable" over and over again and never answering the question. The carefully constructed image of her as a strong, effective leader is starting to crumble - she appears to be too scared to answer questions properly, and as soon as her bold policy on social care started affecting the polls, she immediately did a U-turn.

I still think the Tories will win, though. Apart from anything else, those 50+ seats in Scotland aren't going to come back to Labour. And a lot of those UKIP voters who might otherwise split the right-wing vote will switch to the Tories.

I don't think Labour will do it (unfortunately) but May will look like a total bloody failure as this won't be the landslide she was expecting.

I actually think Corbyn would be good with Brexit negotiations and Theresa May looks far from competent but we all know that they wouldn't be the ones doing the negotiations.

Paxman looked stupid yesterday. Corbyn didn't. And why anyone disagrees with the idea that talking / listening is preferable to bombing is beyond me.

Why is no one discussing the Land Value Tax Labour have put in their manifesto? Likely to hit farmers disproportionately hard, meaning food prices go up.

The average house price in England in March 2017 was £232,530, meaning an annual tax bill of £3,837 based on a 3 per cent tax on 55 per cent of the value.

Anyone with a garden should read:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/29/tax-homes-treble-labour-plans-land-value-tax/

Ack may I suggest you do some research before you spout your nonsense online. There are some, but only a few benefit scroungers, but in fact the biggest part of the welfare budget goes to those scrounging pensioners. You're talking bollocks.

On the issue of Brexit negotiations, I think going in claiming to be "hard" and "difficult" and the rest of it is utterly counter-productive. Our EU counterparts will negotiate much better if they're negotiating with someone they like, who they sense will offer a bit of give-and-take. If May blasts in saying she's standing firm and not offering concessions, they're going to retaliate in kind. And there's 27 of them, and only one of us.

I don't understand why everyone's obsessed with a rather tenuous It's connection. Sinn Fein are actually deeply rooted in the organisation and are now a legitimate political party, so time to let bygones be bygones.