To despair that people still vote Tory given their track record and outright dishonesty?

[flashbac]

I don't get it. Its depressing. We deserve better than this surely? Why give them the green light? What kind of society do we want? One where liars get our approval?

@duffeldaisy

Hell would freeze over before I would vote Labour. I don't agree with their socialist policies - I am Conservative through and through and would always vote for them because they mostly stand for what I believe and want.

I hope you don't use the NHS then, or take any weekends or paid holidays off work, or use libraries or public parks, or claim maternity or paternity pay, or child benefit, or sick pay, or benefit from the minimum wage being in place, or health and safety guidelines at work. All of those things were fought for by the unions who formed the Labour party, and they're all socialism in action.

No I don't use any of those things! Get my point?

fiheka
It was plain corruption

Airbus, Ford, McLaren and Rolls-Royce are corrupt as well?

VentilatorChallengeUK, the Consortium of UK aerospace, motorsport, automotive and medical businesses...
Established, from scratch, seven new large-scale manufacturing facilities at Airbus AMRC Cymru in Broughton, Ford in Dagenham, GKN Aerospace in Luton and Cowes, McLaren in Woking, Rolls-Royce in Filton and STI in Hook, as well as restructuring existing sites Smiths Medical in Luton and Penlon in Abingdon.

I don't remember Keir Starmer telling you to get out of the party. Nor have I seen it on their website.

I don't think KS signed this particular pledge, he had his own, slightly toned down version but all of the other leadership contenders signed this 12 point pledge.

#expelme got quite a bit of traction on social media at the time and many women cancelled their Labour Party membership. #labourlosingwomen has as also been a theme for a few years now.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51465800

Despite the many failings of the Conservative they have at least put reform of the GRA on the back burner for now which buys us time to actually persuade people a debate is necessary to negotiate how to balance competing rights.

@User135644 - you mean this is your opinion, not 'people'. Don't hide your own opinions. For what it's worth Labour wasn't a 'Remain' Party nor the Conservatives a 'Leave' Party. It was a cross party issue. Johnson muted his 'Remainers' or threw them out of the Party.

fiheka
But if you did not see these multiple interviews then you are not keeping up with the news.

I remember one man being interviewed but he ran a consultancy firm with a partner company in the United Arab Emirates. The partner company had sourced a production line in China to manufacture ventilators - which may or may not have been the correct specification. That's not the same as manufacturing ventilators in the UK.

A few people phoned LBC offering ppe and sanitizer too last April. Not sure if those were followed up on or not? There was so much information at the time it's hard to remember those dark first lockdown days , but I do remember people offering all sorts , just to help out a bit. Especially care homes.
The nightingale hospital in London was dismantled end of last year and another waste of money , sadly. Was it ever used much ?
Some of the handling of this pandemic was chaotic and if Labour had messed up like it in the early days the right wing press would have been on them like a ton of bricks especially over Dominic Cummings and his antics in April and the presser in May snd the money spent on it all in general.
I understand why people don't like Labour but they do airbrush the Tory failings too.

According to this article only one per cent of PPE was manufactured in the UK prior to the pandemic;

UK set to produce 70 percent of PPE required domestically by December [2020] ...

Before the pandemic, only one percent of PPE was produced in the UK.

www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/129369/uk-set-to-produce-70-percent-of-ppe-required-domestically-by-december/

@duffeldaisy

In very short, no, I'd phone up every manufacturer currently supplying the NHS. The same that if you have a leaking tap you look around for a plumber, not ask a friend who has some other water-based job.

BBC News, which is the part which matters on political reporting, is far more represented at the top by the right wing.

What makes you think that the existing suppliers didn't already have full order books?

Because many were interviewed on TV saying they offered to provide more and heard nothing back, so sold abroad.

From BBC News, 21st April 2020

"The government has had more than 8,000 offers from suppliers of personal protective equipment (PPE) and is prioritising those of "larger volumes", Downing Street has said."

Only they didn't.

If you want specific examples, there are several responses from companies in the the thread by Rachel Reeves MP on 20th April 2020, where she shared the letter she'd written to the government asking why UK textile companies were being ignored. You can find lots of separate articles on companies at the time, and what they could offer.

There were several phone-ins on LBC where people were saying how they could help but couldn't get responses. There really is so much out there. Ignoring all of those companies was wrong when frontline staff and dentists had no PPE.
twitter.com/RachelReevesMP/status/1252260807074775045

@bp300 So we couldn't afford them, but we could afford £200 million on a boat, £100 million on ‘Get Ready For Brexit’ advertising, £16 million worth of faulty antibody tests, wasted £11.8 million on a failed Track and Trace to Hancock's mate, £11 million on “additional passport costs”, an extra £1.3 billion a year for the transition to Brexit and £100 million of contracts had been given to just six major consultancies to navigate Brexit, which would normally not be outsourced, and even worse, were not declared. But a 1% pay rise for the workers who save actual lives every single day is too much. Surprising when BJ considered his additional £250,000 salary whilst mayor "chicken feed".

I get women want safe spaces and voting Tory to ensure that appears to solve that problem today. For me it’s not a deal breaker because I tend to think the reason Tories have put the whole discussion on the back burner is that they will put any request/discussion for advancement of rights of any sector on the back burner. They really don’t care about rights, though probably leave them be whilstever it doesn’t conflict with their agenda - as has been said the way a government treats its refugees is instructive as that’s how they’d treat all of their citizens if they thought they’d get away with it. Considering the amount of restrictive legislation pushed through on the quiet through covid, and the real concern on employment rights going forwards, I wouldn’t rely on maintaining anyone’s rights by keeping them in power.

I get women want safe spaces and voting Tory to ensure that appears to solve that problem today.

In an article in 2017 in The Week, it says "At least 34 refuges have shut their doors since the Conservatives came to power in 2010."

Just last month Tory MPs voted against a number of amendments to the domestic abuse bill, which would have placed serial domestic abusers and stalkers on a register.

Women are not better off under a Conservative government.

[quote babbaloushka]@bp300 So we couldn't afford them, but we could afford £200 million on a boat, £100 million on ‘Get Ready For Brexit’ advertising, £16 million worth of faulty antibody tests, wasted £11.8 million on a failed Track and Trace to Hancock's mate, £11 million on “additional passport costs”, an extra £1.3 billion a year for the transition to Brexit and £100 million of contracts had been given to just six major consultancies to navigate Brexit, which would normally not be outsourced, and even worse, were not declared. But a 1% pay rise for the workers who save actual lives every single day is too much. Surprising when BJ considered his additional £250,000 salary whilst mayor "chicken feed".[/quote]
We can't afford any of that either. If the government don't rain the spending on soon we are going to see serious declines to the standard of living in this country.

duffeldaisy
"The government has had more than 8,000 offers from suppliers of personal protective equipment (PPE) and is prioritising those of "larger volumes", Downing Street has said."

Only they didn't.

Prioritising "larger volumes" would mean giving government contracts to suppliers who could offer millions of items of PPE in one go - not small companies who could only manufacture a few thousand per week - not even from the correct material? In your link (April 2020) - Rachel Reeves says in her letter;

"Currently we are dependent on a fabric which only one UK company has the means to manufacture."

[quote duffeldaisy]From BBC News, 21st April 2020

"The government has had more than 8,000 offers from suppliers of personal protective equipment (PPE) and is prioritising those of "larger volumes", Downing Street has said."

Only they didn't.

If you want specific examples, there are several responses from companies in the the thread by Rachel Reeves MP on 20th April 2020, where she shared the letter she'd written to the government asking why UK textile companies were being ignored. You can find lots of separate articles on companies at the time, and what they could offer.

There were several phone-ins on LBC where people were saying how they could help but couldn't get responses. There really is so much out there. Ignoring all of those companies was wrong when frontline staff and dentists had no PPE.
twitter.com/RachelReevesMP/status/1252260807074775045[/quote]
Have you looked into some of the companies Rachel Reeves put forward? I'm not sure that a boat-cover manufacturer, a law firm, a historical costume company and a conservatory blind manufacturer are equipped to supply millions of medical-grade face masks?

There are 1,588 civil servants at the DHSC. Do you really think that they have the resources to sift through 8,000 offers of equipment to weed out the con-artists, time-wasters and well-meaning no-hopers and prepare and sign contracts with all of the rest? There was a crisis, the best approach was to contact the manufacturers who had proven ability to supply bulk quantities. You are also going to miss out the odd Cheshire-based manufacturer of ventilators when you are swamped with offers and are having to sort the wheat from the chaff.

@duffeldaisy

I get women want safe spaces and voting Tory to ensure that appears to solve that problem today.

In an article in 2017 in The Week, it says "At least 34 refuges have shut their doors since the Conservatives came to power in 2010."

Just last month Tory MPs voted against a number of amendments to the domestic abuse bill, which would have placed serial domestic abusers and stalkers on a register.

Women are not better off under a Conservative government.

www.itv.com/news/meridian/2021-02-25/fight-to-save-a-charity-that-helps-domestic-abuse-survivors-in-sussex Refuges are doing so well in Green-controlled Brighton.

500 posts of back and forth arguing about just who is more terrible, Labour or Conservative?

It's like two bald men fighting over a comb.

Just mind your own business and let others vote for whom they want. No need to 'despair' or drama

Absolutely....

I'm scottish. Today i vote tory as a last ditch effort to save the union, and they are a main party who may protect women's rights against trans lobby attempt to erode them, or at the very least dont give it centre stage time. These are the biggest issues to me at the moment. We are sleepwalking into a women's rights crisis and the snp just add to the madness. Im not wealthy, I work in the nhs ffs and i have seen how thier policies directly impact my department in the past, though scotland was better protected from austerity due to the snp - whom i have voted in the past. I just can't get behind another referendum. I want a somewhat stable country for my daughter and figured i can vote down the line to save the nhs or work from within via strikes etc if it came to it. My vote is futile anyway as my area is overwhelmingly snp so it wont matter anyway. In a general election. I honestly have no idea. In the old days id vote labour but not currently.

We can't afford any of that either. If the government don't rain the spending on soon we are going to see serious declines to the standard of living in this country.

For whom? Not for the big bosses of the companies the tories have been chucking money at. The standard of living has already seen a “serious decline” over the last decade - the number of food banks should tell you that. The number of people booted off disability benefits despite not being fit to work. The bloody bedroom tax which has disproportionately impacted disabled people.

If anyone’s standard of living decreases, it will be those who are barely coping already. That’s the precise nature of the problem.

@DdraigGoch

We have so many ridiculous situations in this country, like rail companies - every single rail company in the UK has a European national railway as a large shareholder. The insane costs of our privatised system are subsidising nationalised railways around Europe. It’s an embarrassment. Not true, which European railway has shares in Caledonian Sleeper, Great Western Railway, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains, London North Eastern Railway, Northern Trains, South Western Railway, TfL Rail and TransPennine Express?

Actually, the Dutch were subsidising Scotland's railways before the pandemic.

You are correct that I misspoke - it’s not every single operator, there are intact five whole operators who are fully privately funded without investment from another state. Although you’re wrong about South Western Railway (Hong Kong state). TFL, LNER and the underground are state owned, but by us. So 22 out of 30 U.K. rail operators run to make profits for other states.

The privatisation of our railways is a cross between a cautionary tale and a joke across Europe - looking at the list it’s not hard to see why.

@StoneofDestiny

Boris Johnson branded the children of single mothers "ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate" in a magazine column.

In the 1995 piece in The Spectator, he said it was “outrageous" that married couples should fund "'the single mothers' desire to procreate independently of men.”

He said "I blame the male sex for the appalling proliferation of single mothers", which "is producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children"

After saying working class men are "likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless", he added: "If he is white collar, he is likely to be little better.

"It is no use blaming uppity and irresponsible women for becoming pregnant in the absence of a husband.

I can think of two reasons why this doesn't work as a criticism of Boris Johnson.

1. A lot of people quietly agree with all these views.

1. A lot of those who don't agree won't care because he said it 25 years ago. In fact they might even think it Peru petty to trot it out after all the time that has passed.

The privatision of rail is a bit of a weird hill to die on tbh, we need an upgrade and you only have to raise the topic of HS2 to see some people do a complete 180 on that issue.

There are other factors at play with regards to other states owning rail franchises (not track as that is still public) is partly due to the tender process of us being in the EU.

It is far more nunanced, than statements such as 'lol the rest of europe are laughing at us', as most people who have the least amount of critical thinking and have looked into the reasons can see the revistionist simplistic argument some like to make, whilst also waving placards about 'no to hs2'.