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?

A party which is honest, reliable and committed to educating and enriching the lives of all people. I do want transparency and values to be important and long term, effective plans for Investing and delivering for the best outcomes in:

• Early years
• Education
• Healthcare
• Environment
• Innovation
• Public Transport
• Over all quality of life - not just financial for all people in the UK

The would also be focused on building
Fair tax system
A society which fosters on individual and collective ownership
Committed to dismantling systematic and institutional bias
An efficient public sector
An efficient, and transitional for the majority, benefits system.
Dismantling of the class system
We need some honest conversation about tax revenue and spending. We have an aging population, we need to look at that is gong to be funded.

@Cuppasoupmonster In the get rid off box, why have you grouped racial issues in with gender politics and TWAW? It makes your comment about Barack Obama feel off and gives your proposed party a big whiff of pale, male and stale. (I suspect you are probably female, still)

I used Nigel Farage as an example of someone who successfully played the ‘man of the people’ card when he’s actually a privately educated former commodities trader. I wasn’t calling you pro Brexit, I was saying you’re disingenuous, naturally right of centre and going for meaningless sound bites.

Every governmental position should be filled by mandatory lottery and every 5 years we get to vote to either keep them, replace them or execute them.

A party that drops the unachievable? Irrelevant and damaging net zero agenda

I'd vote for yours.

Anyone who thinks the Tories are the party of women and minorities really really hasn't been paying attention. For a start, the ideological austerity programme that was brought in the by the coalition had policies that adversely affected those groups, particularly women and certain ethnic groups, disproportionately.

Calling Labour backbenchers puppets after the shenanigans of the last few years with ERG is also a bit of a joke.

I also don't understand the obsession with 'ordinary people' who've done 'real' jobs. Yes, I'm completely fed up of old Etonians but I'm not sure this is the corollary. Running a country is a job like no other, surely. I'm not sure that wanting to make a career out of it and being an expert in it is in and of itself such a bad idea.

My ideal party would definitely be Labour just after the 97 election, though at the time I moaned the weren't left wing enough 😅. Labour as they are now will do me, especially if KS keeps tightening his stance on women, which he has improved on lately. Lots of great sounding policies and a very strong potential cabinet imo.

None of the parties are for minorities and the OPs would definitely be no better for me than any of the other current poor choices.

Labour currently is too populist in its approach. By that I mean, it focuses too much on low level political point scoring: it's way too timid regarding the EU and the need to address the Brexit-induced economic woes, and too focused on 'token' measures such as taxing non-doms and applying VAT to private schools. All sounds nicely 'social' but won't achieve much ultimately. In the case of private schools I would even argue that all it'll do is close a door to middle class families without generating enough income to actually solve any of the issues in education- and it'll do nothing to impact the very wealthy (what's a few thousand ££ to those with real money?). It's short-sighted.

My political party would

Tackle wealth inequality. Stop allowing billionaires to profit by exploitation of staff and the general public.

Introduce linked wages. Close tax loopholes. Massive tax penalties on hedge funds etc

Sort out social housing. Renationalise energy and transport

Massively increase funding into health and education especially SEN.

Bring social care fully under the NHS. Properly sort out elderly care funding. Close loopholes allowing people to dodge care home fees

Proper sex based rights and focus on tackling mysoginy. Much harsher penalties for VAWG

Fully subsidised childcare. Enforced paternity leave.

Fix the gender pay gap

Fix brexit

Tackle mysoginy and racism in society but especially in the police

Actually do something about climate change

What is VAWG. Thanks

Ignore my question. I have just realised. I thought it was Trans related comment and couldn't work out what it was.

If you see anything “nasty”, do feel free to report it.

Women aren’t going to shut up about their rights though.

🙄. I certainly don’t want women to shut up about their rights. I’m a woman and a feminist after all. Just no need to be nasty about trans people 💁🏼‍♀️

There’s no point in trying to create a party that would be successful without abandoning neoliberalism and that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As long as we live in a society that supports neoliberal capitalism there will always be unethical politicians, greedy humans, corporations deciding policy.

new labour are not something to aspire to. They played the neoliberal game the made the rich richer and gave lip service to the poor but no more than that.

They also introduced PPP and the work capability assessments too. Neither something to be proud of

Violence against women and girls

Thank you.

Can we have qualifications for politicians such as some expertise and experience please? Not just ex councillors and people who have never had a job irl .

I have no political home as some of my policies would be considered very left wing (nationalise transport and utilities) and some more right wing (radical reform of NHS)

Again, do feel free to report anything “nasty”. The report button is below.

Well, the ‘trans thing’ is a big deal for me because I believe that if a politician can lie about something which is evident, universal fact to ‘enhance their reputation’, then what other bandwagons would they jump on to appease small numbers of people? I would feel the same if they declared the Earth is flat. All men know very well that a man cannot be a woman, and if they truly feel they can they should lead by example and date/marry a transwoman. It’s a hallmark of a deceitful and spineless person.

I'd like a party that is socially liberal, but also respects debate and fights back against "cancel culture".
Legalising assisted suicide should be a high priority.
Also, set up a Royal Commission to look at replacing the current NHS funding & management structures.
Economically is more towards the right - tax cutting and aiming to reduce state intervention as much as possible.
Encourage more grammar schools across the whole country.
Probably a bit of everything, then, not just locked into lazy left and right stereotypes.

I would vote for a party who would:

Have a sensible grown up relationship with the EU, with a view to rejoining the Single Market
Increase tax on those who can afford it, including IHT and income tax
Abolish NI for employees and roll it into income tax
Invest in education and healthcare properly
Invest in cycle paths and active travel
Ban pavement parking
Ban garden bonfires and fireworks for personal use
Do something about noise pollution, such as stopping things like garden cinemas and those stupid exhausts on cars
More regulation of dog ownership and reinstate dog wardens
Insist that council honour their legal obligation to fund libraries properly

and stop wasting money on contracts for their cronies

I'd like some politicians that actually listen to the people who work in the area, and those who are the users of the service they are talking about / leading / making decisions about......... so a system whereby the Home Secretary isn't allowed to make any changes / proclamations / decisions on the Prison Service without actually spending several days in prisons, experiencing the atmosphere and talking with actual Prison offices. ....... no decisions to be made about the complete farce that is the judicial service without talking to Victim support groups, barristers, people who have recently done jury service, witnesses, police, social services and so forth....... going out on shift with Police Officers in an area where police are not made welcome.........Minister for Education not allowed to make any changes without spending at least 3 months talking to actual teachers in schools, without spending a full day in a classroom (both Reception and Yr10), without talking to parents whose dc are out of school, without talking to CAMHS (if they can find anyone who still works for CAMHS)......... Health Secretary has to spend a 12 hour shift in A&E on a Saturday night, talk to a group of paramedics about their experiences, talk to parents facing a 3 yr wait for a diagnosis for their child ....talk to families who can't get speech therapy for their child .....talk to families who can't get dementia care for their parents .........

and so on and so on - you get the picture.
The idea being they MUST have some sort of understanding of what life is really like for people who use food banks, for people who are "temporarily" housed in a hostel, for people who can't get MH support, etc etc etc before announcing anything, and before they start 'bidding' for their share of the budget.

Oh I forgot reform of consumer protection laws to make companies answer the phone to customers and have an email address that they have to answer within 24 hours - with a proper substantive response, and stop them taking money and then ignoring customers until either the Times or Which? get involved.

I think they should bring back the "dole" for people in the arts. I remember Vic reeves talking about it. Comedy in particular seems very one note these days.

We also desperately need to increase productivity; how I’ve no idea but would like somebody with ideas. Why are so few of us net contributors?