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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Am I deluded to think the blue wall might crumble if there were a GE ?

284 replies

Katharinablum · 17/09/2020 20:07

Appreciate there's not going to be a GE for at least 3 years. Also appreciate that the british electorate seems to have a short memory regarding tory governments...
I'm on twitter and a regular comment from certain elements is that longstanding Labour leave constituencies turned tory in the last GE. Usually associated with crowing about how labour is finished. Back in dec 2019 I would have struggled to disagree, but with a new leader at the helm things are looking up, that and the absolute ineptitude of the government's management of the pandemic, plus their sheer dishonesty over brexit, I'm daring to wonder whether those resolutely blue constituencies in the home counties and shires might turn a little pinker ? What's the tipping point to make life long tories desert them ?
People up here in the north are more politically fickle, there's alot of w/c dislike and distrust of labour, far more than they deserve, whereas the tories have escaped it relatively speaking, despite years of ideological austerity that hurt the north far more than the EU ever did..Just wondered if people thought there would be a realignment in the way huge areas of the country voted, what with a chaotic brexit pretty inevitable as well as the fall out from covid.. .

OP posts:
VinylDetective · 21/09/2020 20:48

I seem to have missed those threads. Got a link @Graphista?

LastTrainEast · 21/09/2020 21:08

Not a chance this time around.

I was a life long Labour supporter and will be again when they rebuild the party. Meanwhile "the absolute ineptitude of the government's management of the pandemic" won't wash as we've done pretty much the same as all the other countries.
"Brexit" we'll have to wait and see, but I don't see how it would have been handled better by some woke activist with a PHD in finger-painting.

We can't keep the Tories in too long as their only measure of success is the profit made and a society has to aim for more than that, but we don't want Labour back in until they have sorted themselves out. Right now I'd rather be led by a dyslexic donkey.

I had hopes for Keir Starmer, but he doesn't even support his own MPs when they are attacked so hardly leadership material. What happened to the great Labour leaders?

Katharinablum · 21/09/2020 21:56

To be fair I don’t think either of the main parties are excelling themselves at the moment.
I still have high hopes for Starmer, not giving up on him yet. Some of the carping about him on social media is just sad and makes you wonder how many of these people actually want to win an election, they are absolutely convinced victory was snatched from Corbyn in 2017 and seem to be struggling to let go of him. I’m not sure how starmer stands with the party membership but I’m pretty sure he’s more electable than jc was, particularly with regards to floating voters....,

OP posts:
ListeningQuietly · 21/09/2020 22:01

I had hopes for Keir Starmer, but he doesn't even support his own MPs when they are attacked so hardly leadership material.
I must have missed that one .... what happened

tttigress · 21/09/2020 22:20

My take is the Tories will do a reboot with Rishi in charge ready for the next election, those freshening themselves up a bit.

As stated elsewhere, the Tories are a lot better than labour at changing with the times.

VinylDetective · 22/09/2020 00:18

Thanks @Graphista.

AlexTheLittleCat · 22/09/2020 12:00

@Katharinablum

To be fair I don’t think either of the main parties are excelling themselves at the moment. I still have high hopes for Starmer, not giving up on him yet. Some of the carping about him on social media is just sad and makes you wonder how many of these people actually want to win an election, they are absolutely convinced victory was snatched from Corbyn in 2017 and seem to be struggling to let go of him. I’m not sure how starmer stands with the party membership but I’m pretty sure he’s more electable than jc was, particularly with regards to floating voters....,
That's sad, I don't understand them. Starmer is much, much more electable than Corbyn in general, it would be such a shame if that side of the Labour party didn't support him and therefore he didn't get in. It's almost like they wanted Boris Johnson last election with the support for Corbyn. Some parts of Labour (mainly Momentum) gone very far to the left and as someone who has always voted Labour or Lib Dem, I don't connect to it at all.

@Graphista Thanks for the links, interesting reading. I guess more people are being exposed to the benefits system and seeing that it is not exactly generous.

20mum · 22/09/2020 20:28

Exactly, as @Graphista says. But it is wrong to have this wretched 'furlough' as a word for unemployed and never likely to get similar work again. It would have been better to, naturally, divert extra staff, but the day people stopped working, let them all, every last one, be treated equally. Just as anyone else is expected to apply for benefits, let them do the same, get the same amount, with the same tules. It's true there are anomalies, but let a wider public see for themselves, so there's hope of public opinion pushing change.

The savings thing is an example of where what was basically a logical system has become illogical. Own a house worth millions, with a partner living in it, but no savings in your name, and get council tax payers to fund you in a care home. Live anxiously in your last years, hoping your entire life savings will be enough to keep your rented roof over your head, with no housing benefit, no pension supplement and no private pension, and not only will the modest remains of your savings stop you qualifying for benefits, they stop you being eligible for a council place, even when street homeless, if your private landlord wants to sell, and no other private landlord will take an old or disabled person. (If you do finish up in a care home, you pay full fees, plus a premium to subsidise your fellow residents, such as the owner of that multimillion house.)

Savings, to someone old and disabled and with no private pension, are not the same as savings to a person who owns a house and has a large pension.

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