Results like these at a general election would mean Tory annihilation

[noblegiraffe]

Says a BBC headline this morning.

Anyone else stockpiling popcorn?

The distribution of houses is the problem for half million families really if you add the 250,000 empty houses to the 250,000 people who have two houses.

That's roughly equivalent to three years out of the five year parliamentary term of ambitious house building.

And there are so many empty office blocks these days.

I'm half expecting the Tory extremists who don't seem to understand anything to try to bring Boris Johnson back, or maybe even Liz Truss.

For a Truss or Johnson return I'm afraid it's just not viable. World popcorn stocks could not stand the surge in demand.

Where did you get your figures from?

They are widely different from those published by local authorities who are required to keep track of these things.

It's about time tbh. Labour to me have actively thrown away chances since Brexit and it never seemed like they actually wanted to win. As someone earlier said, these things go in cycles. I would love to see if Labour can turn things around. I just wish they weren't so mired deep in the identity politics bullshit. My Labour MP however is fabulous and old school Labour so I've never had to hold my nose to vote for him.

I don't see how you can account for 500,000 empty homes just on the basis of their being at various stages of the buying or selling process, because of necessity relatively few people move out of their homes when they are in the process of selling them. Yes, there are new builds, but a lot of those are sold even before building works are completed, and there are things like executors' sales, but I suspect many of those come into the 250K that have been empty for more than 6 months.

Doing away with / reducing inheritance tax is appalling. Inheritanced money was never ‘yours’ in the first place, most of the wealth has been artificially generated by ridiculous housing prices - so tax was never paid on that money as it was never ‘earnt’. Increasing inheritance tax, preventing people from avoiding taxes is one way to generate more income without impacting on working people’s livelihoods. I also think reducing vat would help the economy.

If you look at what gets built these days. It's either apartments near city centres at astronomical rents, or soulless and unaffordable red brick housing estates in tge middle of nowhere that you need a car to get in and out of.

Thatcher sold off council homes and we stopped building more since and the house price bubble has been in effect.

Spot on. Anyone who thinks that real conservatives were for lockdowns and destruction of the economy is deluded. And their opposition to lockdowns has been proved to right over time, with regards to the economy, children’s education and much more.

She hasn't been a shitshow for months, it has gone on for more than a decade. She was a shocking MP, and did not work on behalf of her constituents, she was concerned only with furthering her own career, her 'I'm a Celebrity' status, and (apart from writing over 15 so-called novels during her tenure) did sod all else.

There is one single reason why Tories will get booted out. There is only ever one reason why any government in the western world gets booted out.

It’s the economy, stupid.

‘How many of us are affected by a trans woman daily’ - approx 50% if the population!! Because it’s not the transwoman that’s the problem is the eradication of women’s rights it’s leading too if we let biologically born men call themselves women. And that will affect every woman in this country

You can't extrapolate from your own motivations and even those of your friends to the motivation of all Tory voters. There was a very large core that was fully supportive of lockdown because they recognised that the NHS would never cope otherwise, and because they didn't want to die and they didn't want their relatives to die. Don't forget that lockdown was pretty standard all over the world, or indeed that Tory voters tend to be an older demographic.

And it's a large proportion of those who have become disillusioned and whose votes have been lost primarily because of the attitude Johnson demonstrated to compliance with the laws and guidance his own government put in place. No government can repeatedly flick two fingers at the public in the way they did and expect to get away with it.

That's a woman's rights issue and equality I issue which has always existed and continues to be need to be fought.

But no party is any good at it.

The Tory's want woman at home having more babies. I've seen the link here about what was said plenty of times.

They've allowed biological men into woman's spaces who have raped them.

I don't see how a man calling themself a woman erodes our rights. Not with what we get etc. and I'm dubious about the fact a man would call themself a woman if their life would be significantly worse by doing so.

It's an issue that needs addressing. But it isn't the single vote issue people make it out to be.

I read that if the Tamworth swing were replicated at a General election the Tories would only have 29 MPs and the Lib Dem's would be the opposition party.

Won’t happen. The Tamworth Tory candidate was spectacularly awful.

The Tamworth Tory candidate was spectacularly awful.

A lot of the best Tory MPs stood down after Brexit. More MPs will be seeing the way the wind is blowing and will probably stand down before another election. Therr are likely to be many spectacularly awful candidates standing at the next election as they will truly have to be scraping the barrel.

I mean this isn't going to happen but I do love looking at those maps

@Passepartoute

"There was a very large core that was fully supportive of lockdown because they recognised that the NHS would never cope otherwise, and because they didn't want to die and they didn't want their relatives to die. Don't forget that lockdown was pretty standard all over the world, or indeed that Tory voters tend to be an older demographic."

++++

You are absolutely correct that a large core of voters were supportive of the lockdowns and other measures - I would actually argue that it was by far the majority.

But whilst at the time they were supportive they are now unhappy with the consequences. Printing £450 billion will inevitably lead to higher inflation which in turn leads to higher interest rates. Equally massively increasing Government debt plus higher interest rates means that more Government expenditure is on interest payments so that it is now the third biggest item of expenditure after Social Security (pensions etc) and the NHS and more than education.

In short voters supported the upside (lower deaths etc) but don't like the current downsides.

@1dayatatime I think your summary is accurate. In addition lockdown would not have been different with Labour so holding a grudge against the Cons for that in the midst of everything else that’s going on leaves a voter with nowhere to go. It does mean the belief that Labour can turn things around with any speed is ludicrous. Definitely a 10 year project.

Most long serving governments run out of steam. Labour were awful prior to Thatcher and stuttered under Brown. The Cons are ruthless with failed leaders (Hague, Major, Howard, May etc) but I’m also in agreement that many new MPs will be of poor calibre. It’s been an ongoing problem for 10 plus years. Plenty do want the job but few are good enough to be in the Cabinet. They are cannon fodder with no ideas and no backbone.

The Tories deserve a turn in the doldrums. The party needs to reflect on their (many) failures and to recover and develop fresh people with fresh ideas. It is time for a change and lockdown and its legacy costs will hamstring any party's most overarching ambitions for the foreseeable future.

Sadly, I share the fear that new MPs are likely to be fairly lacklustre: the job is not well enough paid to attract the really able and the intrusions into private life would be enough to deter most people, so you end up with the folk who want to exercise power for personal gain.

@Papyrophile I agree - I remember the Tories under Major and even under Thatcher. What we have now aren't even the same species. They aren't Conservatives, they're Destructives. The're going to have to go full phoenix from the ashes to recover any credibility as a centre right party. Sadly I think they're going to start by going full wingnut first.

Fairly sure it will take your 'full phoenix' @pointythings but with no assurance that the Tories can row back towards the old One Nation party. Come the GE, I suspect they will be irrelevant for a generation.