Describe the imaginary political party you would want to vote for

[Cuppasoupmonster]

For those of us fed up of the sad selection on offer!

The left are toxic, the right are toxic. I want a pragmatic ‘centre’ party. A bit like the early days of New Labour. A focus on average working people and families, long-term plans for the environment, healthcare and cost of living/housing. No identity politics twattery, no TWAW, no taking the knee type gestures. Straight talking people who can be honest with the public about what is and isn’t possible rather than offering the moon on a stick then failing to deliver it. Standards and transparency and an oath to resign the moment they’re caught lying about their tax affairs. A leader with gravitas that doesn’t look like he or she is about to burst into tears at any moment Kier or have a constant lame grin like they can’t really believe they’ve been made Head Boy and are enjoying wearing the badge Rishi. Maybe a sort of British Barack Obama?

What about you?

I'd too like to see a sensible party. There needs to be a very frank and honest conversation with us all about realistically can be provided.

I'd like to see a party who are willing to face the fact the NHS in its current form is not working and is willing to completely overhaul it in a sensible manner. There is too much waste, too many pen pushers and not enough boots on the ground. There needs to be a real look at boots on the ground staffing and ensuring there is enough of it all the time and not relying on current staff doing overtime. We really need to be honest with ourselves and realise that we are going to have to contribute to some of our healthcare. This needs to be done on a sliding scale or in bands like the (absolute gold dust) NHS dentist system.

I'd like a party who are going to face the elderly care crisis. We are only at the beginning, we have a large aging population. We need to be bringing back convalescent homes and step down care to help the hospital back log. This needs to be done on a large scale in most towns and all cities. All these over 50s developments been built should instead be warden flats or community care flats. So independent living with a warden who patrols for anyone who can live independently but susceptible to falls or just needs a bit of help all the way to independent living flats with a care team on site who visit every few hours to help with meds/ dressing/ toileting etc as home carers would but would actually only work on that site. This would be a halfway house between living independently in their own home and going into a residential care home. It allows carers to be on site so not travelling and if there are buzzers in the flats then help can be asked for quickly rather than carers discovering people laid on floors.

It would be nice to have a party committed to children's education and early years care. Look carefully at the funding of early years places to ensure providers are not short changed. Address class sizes (20 children max). Fund education so it can provide nurture provision/ learning mentors/ TAs in every class/ small booster groups/ reading recovery teachers. Schools should not be scrambling around trying to afford basic equipment like glue sticks and pencils. They should not be having to cut creative subjects purely to be able to buy new reading books. Scrap SATs - there are better ways to measure progress and performance that don't destroy child mental health. Education needs to stop been a hot political potato, get rid of all the wasteful think-tanks, put educators in charge of education and let the educators get on with it.

In regards to SEN, we need a government committed to building SEN schools and provision. SEN schools that cater for academic children with SEN. Schools that cater for children with mental health difficulties. Education provision that doesn't look like traditional school (forest school/ farm school/ community school). More choice than just schools that offer provision for moderate or severe learning needs or behaviour needs. We also need a government willing to get rid of this attendance pressure where SEN is a factor. SEN parents generally want their children to attend an education setting, getting into school is difficult for some children - they need support to do so and laddering where they may only attend 1 or 2 sessions a week and a planned slow integration to school life. Sending threatening letters about attendance helps no-one.

We are in dire need of residential places to offer respite services and holiday care for children. This requires a skilled and valued workforce. Plus funding for more that just 1-1 care to be provided.

I'd also like to see a commitment to energy and food security.

Looks like an impossible ask tbh.

I'd vote for your party OP! I think New Labour (before the Iraq war) had it about right.

Also agree with PP that we won't get any of this without proportional representation where every vote counts.

Also the PP who said they are quite conservative in their politics but hate this Tory party ... I consider myself centre left but agreed with everything you said, which I found interesting.

Also sorry to mention the trans issue as don't want to derail the thread, but I'd love to see a party who dare to openly discuss this with the aim of pragmatic steps that support both trans people and female people. A big push for gender neutral spaces (in addition to single sex ones) would be the most obvious gain to me - this would also be useful for dads taking their daughters out (or mums with sons).

Or front-line health or social services. National Service for politicians.

Universal Basic Income, proportional representation, green investment bank, a new arm of HMRC that would be properly funded and independent from govt to investigate tax avoidance and evasion. A 90 % tax on the top 1% of earners. Re write the agriculture bill so it's more conservation based, fund a just transition from current practice to a more sustainable practice. End buy to let mortgages. Put a heavy tax on any second homes as Wales has done. Strip back intermediate management tiers of NHS, redirect funds into patient care. Rejoin the EU. or- Celtic Alliance - independent Wales, Scotland and Ireland - Westminster can go it alone if they want to be little England. A strong new bill for environmental and animal rights protection which would encompasses water quality, and huge huge fines for transgressions. New criminal legislation against environmental harm. An actual ban on fox hunting and any kind of blood sports.

@ACynicalDad actually I did as well now I think about it. Things felt quite stable for a bit, Cameron was a bit of a posh Tory boy but I think quite intelligent and he didn’t brush his hair with a balloon or try to be a ‘personality’.

Oh yes immediate laws and axcess to dignified end of life care eg choosing when to go.

It's not hard other countries mange it.

I can get doctors certifying me now to say I'm of sound mind and say at what stages I'd like to go..
The when I get to those stages another's doctor would assess and that is it.

It's my bloody life its undignified that I can't choose.

No it isn’t.

A party where the members are in touch with reality, and not all wealthy ex Eton types.
A party that tells the truth.
A party where members don't act for personal gain

Doubt will ever see those traits in a politician

Yes raise tax and ni threshold to 15 grand.

Raise limit people can save before benefits taper off to at least 25 grand.

Encourage or make evry new born have an invested sipp... Self investing personal pension so when someone hits 55 they will have extra money and bringing it into the pysce will encourage people to save for it.

I always said I would pay for the first honest party that said if we wanted to keep public services running we would need to pay more for them because the current model was not sustainable. Then the conservatives said that which was unfortunate.

I want to vote for Labour but the version of Labour that knows what a woman is.

Bollocks. We have those because women (the ones with vaginas) fought for them until they couldn't be ignored any more.

To be honest I think it is impossible. The public need more intervention for preventable health issues and mental health problems than they ever have, and to be honest, even if the funding was right we would never be able to recruit the staff needed for such an enormous operation. There simply isn’t the cash for it.

I think (unpopular view 🚨) that there needs to be a ‘personal responsibility’ drive. We seem to focus on expensive sticking plasters for many physical and mental health issues (meds, basically) rather than encouraging people to start with self care by eating, exercising and sleeping properly. The NHS isn’t working because the population it was created for is radically different to the one that we have today - which is living longer but in an unhealthier state. The view that we can’t ’minimise people’s feelings’ mean frank conversations about how people can and should be helping themselves aren’t happening, instead we’re just medicating people and allowing them to blame everything on ‘not enough support’.

There absolutely needs to be help for mental health but people have to want to get better, not rely on the NHS propping them up for the rest of their days so they don’t have to make too much of an effort with their recovery. I can see how somebody may need to be signed off work with depression, particularly in periods of extreme stress or after a life trauma. But I don’t think being depressed entitles you to a life on benefits paid for by other people.

I agree about respite for SEN parents, that absolutely must be as good as the state can reasonably afford.

Identity politics doesn’t necessarily = gender identity. Identity politics is a broad term that refers to political movements where an oppressed group that shares a characteristic forms a movement that sits outside of party politics. Feminism and the US civil rights movement are examples of identity politics. BLM is identity politics.

Identity politics doesn’t exist in its traditional form, the Tories are literally the party of women and ethnic minorities - 3 female PMs, Britain’s
first non white PM, a very diverse cabinet.

There are 225 female MPs in the HoC out of 650. That’s 35% - the highest % of female MPs we’ve ever had.

25% of Conservative MPs are women.
53% of Labour MPs are women.

How are the Conservatives the party of women?

From the 2019 figures, 10% of MPs were from ethnic minorities.

20% of Labour MPs
6% of Conservative MPs

Because rather than installing them as backbench puppets they actually trust them in positions of power. It’s meaningless having female MPs if they’re never trusted to be at the helm isn’t it?

A party that makes it illegal for the pay of a CEO etc to be more than x times the salary of the lowest worker or average wage at the company.

If you made it 30 - 50 times more that's still going to allow salaries of a million plus in most cases for the top earners but will incentivise them to pay normal workers more.

Mine would be:

Slightly left of centre
Pro rejoining the single market
Willing to invest in education and healthcare
Would properly subsidise childcare so no women can't afford not to go back to work
No gender bollocks - women are adult human females who need their own single sex spaces and sports

Well , he was pretty successful. You almost certainly didn’t agree with his aim, but you can’t deny that he achieved it. If the OP could put her policies and wishes in pot action, that would be a similar achievement

On a serious note this is why the left are toxic. Anything less than complete and unquestioning agreement with them = you are Nigel Farage. Even if you’re a remainer

I think any MP should have to have done a normal job for at least 2 years. So retail, hospitality, social care, education.

If you lie while in office, you’re out. Same with any tax stuff.

A party who is prepared to think long term.

I also agree with the personal responsibility aspect. So many people want govt to do everything for them and not help themselves at all. If we brought back pride in taking care of yourself, then there would be more money for other things.

Also, all junk food should be in plain packaging and not advertised. Including drinks. Same as we do for cigarettes. The food industry has a lot to answer for. I’m not blaming consumers.

Women are women. Third spaces for trans people and those who don’t mind sharing their space with men.

Massive clamp down on social media for kids. Not sure how, but it should be much more limited.

my imaginary party is full of deep thinkers who make their policies based on sound evidence and reason, rather than ideology. They have convictions based on this evidence and as such they can soundly defend them in rigorous debates. They believe in the importance of debate, free association and organization in a democracy and defend it.

None of the parties in any of the countries of the UK are currently anything like this.

The left are toxic, the right are toxic. I want a pragmatic ‘centre’ party

So do many of us, OP, but it's not easy to get for two main reasons among others:

1. Too often the kind of people attracted to "politics" are the very last you'd want in charge, and the rest follows
2. Money follows power, so "new" parties are all too easily crushed

About the best we may get is some splitters who hope to attract others, but even then potential members can be too easily brribed to stay right where they are

The Democrats as led by Matt Santos.