To wonder if Labour actually will be any better?

[Baabaagreysheep]

I think like most people I am keen to see the back of the current bunch, but I am not confident that anything will massively change for the better. Maybe that’s a bit pessimistic, but I feel that while some things will improve some will get worse - and some sort of at the same time, so I’m expecting my salary to go up but also my workload to go up!

Thinking back to when Labour were last in power it was another world, really. Interested in views.

In 1997 I had a dying patient who’d waited 18 years for a Labour government, and he died on election day, never knowing they’d won, and missing all the euphoria of the following day. Felt like a huge relief, not just for Labour voters but the whole country, although I’m sure there must have been plenty of unhappy faces too.

I winder if the next GE will be similar? Maybe even greater relief because while Major’s Tories had just given up, were out of ideas after all those years in power, they weren’t anywhere near as malevolent or mendacious as today’s Tories? If the manifesto is good, maybe there will be euphoria too.

Winder/wonder/whatever.

You won't believe me as I now vote Conservative but Tony Blair winning that election at the time, after 17 years of Thatcher/Major, went down as one of the best days of my life.
I was working in Banking at the time and there were many subdued faces in the office the next day, so I had to keep a lid on my euphoria.
I was pretty tired anyway as my whole family had stayed up to watch the results come in. It was a fantastic night but of course with hindsight things eventually went downhill in many areas.
I don't think Starmer is anything like Blair. I will not be euphoric but I can understand why people think it is time for a change.

I remember that night so well. I was working at the count in Cambridge and it became evident that we were seeing history in the making. The joy was amazing. I drove home as the sun was rising on a beautiful day and I sang all the way. It was one of the highlights of my life. I’d so love to experience that again.

I would just love to experience any positivity about the world at all. My entire adult life has been under the tories - recession, austerity, Brexit, covid, more austerity. Haven’t had a single decent year.

Pmsl that’s such a true post.

I want to know their plan for the small boats. I was listening today to a discussion about more hotels being commandeered to house the migrants. Are they going to invest in rhe civil servants so we can actually process these applicants? The money being spent on this bill is needed for so many other things. It’s madness.

@Blossomtoes and @dcbc1234 - as soon as the next GE is announced, you and anyone else interested in politics needs to book the Friday off, as I think it will be wall to wall Portillo moments overnight (as long as the Tory MPs don’t just all resign before the election). Truss! Patel! Braverman! Raab! Hunt! 30p Lee! Gullis!

Would have been Johnson too if the coward hadn’t resigned.

(Some of these may have already announced they aren’t running, they’re just the most delicious ones I can think of.)

I'm not voting at all. Not until Labour can tell me what a woman is.

I’ve never worked the Friday after a GE @MavisMcMinty. I always stay up all night, completely glued to the TV. I think you’re right, the next one will be Portillo moments on steroids. I really hope you get to experience that euphoria @Sweetashunni, there’s nothing like it.

You forgot Rees Mogg Mavis!

I thought of him first! But then wrongly assumed him being knighted (FFS!) meant he’d be in the HoL. So YES, put him on the list!

My MP is Geoffrey Cox, now also a Sir. 25K majority, I’m not hopeful.

It might be my age but I remember being really excited when Labour won in 1997 and expecting everything to change for the better. I was 20 at the time. I can't see 20 year olds today being that optimistic or enthused. Things will continue on as they are with a bit of tinkering around the edges.

It wasn’t your age. I was 43, the same age as Blair.

It's important to not make who is in power such a feature in your happiness in life. They really are as bad as each other.
The pre-Iraq War Blair years were a bit special although the gloss came off pretty quickly with the death of Princess Diana in August after the General Election in May 1997.
However crap it seems, be grateful you are in a democracy.

It's important to not make who is in power such a feature in your happiness in life. They really are as bad as each other.

It’s impossible not to. And they’re not as bad as each other. It defies belief that anyone who lived through the Blair years and the last 13, especially the last seven, could possibly say something so facile.

The irony of someone who presumably voted for Bojo accusing someone else of stupidity

OFFS Transphobes willing to throw the entire country under a bus so they can fret about 0.5% of the population's toilet preferences.

If a political party stepped forward with a raft of policies that perfectly mirrored my own sensibilities but they were fully paid up members of the flat earth society and were intending to ratify nonsense in law to propagate this faith-based, science-less bollocks, then I wouldn't vote for them either.

There's also the Tories attempt at gerrymandering and voter suppression. This photo ID nonsense. Rees Mogg even admitted that they were trying to stop people voting until they realised it was mostly older, Tory voters that were being turned away. Oops. Every time that man opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.
Moving constituency boundaries to favour themselves. It was going to happen to us until they realised it would probably mean Ian Duncan Smith losing his seat and had a change of thought.

That’s called cutting your nose off to spoil your face. Mrs Pankhurst must be revolving in her grave.

I'm not handing in my truth and reality card. It's a principle.

That’s called cutting your nose off to spoil your face.

Off topic, but isn’t it “…to spite your face”?

Cutting your nose off would definitely spoil your face. Mind you, it seems a man can be a woman now by wishing it, so I suppose anyone can wish their nose away.

Fortunately there are many more who really don’t care about trans women using the same toilet. And happily not nearly enough to have any impact of the outcome of an election. The likely next leader of the Tories after they’ve kicked Sunak out is Penny Mordaunt - her views will make your hair curl.