Results like these at a general election would mean Tory annihilation

[noblegiraffe]

Says a BBC headline this morning.

Anyone else stockpiling popcorn?

We need real people, with skin in the game for their constituency to stand. Mumsnet would be a great place for voters to decide upon binding elements that we would like to see in one or more manifestos.
Whether it's the abolition of the bedroom tax, free school meals for all children, minimum standards for public transport, some kind of vote to tell politicians what is wanted rather than what their donors can make money out of would help to hold them to account.

And "I Don't Care" really. democracy means the parties have a change around, the one newly in charge does some good-looking measures whilst their star is in the ascendent and then, blow me down..with..a..Trevor and Parliament, with some feisty Lords thrown in, starts to put a few spanners in 'the works', the reigning party hangs on as long as they can....

Then the wheels turn and it's a Party change again. Tiresome it is, but I'll take that version of democracy over most other regimes going and gone.

PFI was used in a limited way by the Major government, massively expanded by Ed Balls and Gordon Brown after being sold as a panacea by big consultancies. The problem was that the initial attraction (off-balance sheet debt that didn't show up in the government's books) led to many countries signing up and ultimately led to the the debts being counted as debt in government accounts worldwide.
I personally have a hunch that the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) was an attempt to fix the RAAC issue on 'the cheap', when the money ran out, so did the appetite to literally fix the roof when the sun was shining.

@overtaxedoverworked BSF programme was targeted at Labour seats in deprived areas. Mostly. It wasn’t a list drawn up on need in terms of building replacement. Should have been, but wasn’t. Some poor buildings are in Con strongholds and they were generally excluded but they were also areas with financial difficulties as Labour diverted money to Lab seats and London. As you might expect. So it was more about social mobility via better buildings.

@TizerorFizz Seven schools in Essex - which has pockets of poverty, but is a quite well-off county - were scheduled for BSF work which was cancelled by George Osborne and now have RAAC issues. Schools in some leafy, outer-London boroughs were similarly affected.

@overtaxedoverworked Essex and Suffolk are RAAC strongholds. These LAs presumably had contracts to use the stuff as it’s factory produced.

I can assure you RAAC was not a consideration for BSF. If was social mobility. I expect the 7 schools were in deprived areas. Had anyone looked for RAAC in 2005? Or given it a second thought? No. That’s why it crept up on everyone 15 years later. Labour initially only involved 14 LAs but RAAC wasn’t a criteria. It just suits to link the two together . BSC was the PFI that was so expensive for the schools. It needed to be cancelled. What should have replaced it was replacement based on building need.

By the way, plenty of leafy London Boroughs are Labour. Where did Glenda Jackson represent?

'Growth' seems to be primarily about growing company profits to benefit shareholders and directors, not the drudge employees nor consumers, and environmental consideration are zero. Truss is a dangerous moron.

I can't bloody wait for them to be out but honestly I just know labour are going to be full of lies and deceit too and it's just so crap to know there's no one decent who can replace them. I know what the tories have done it can't be worse don't get me wrong but I hope people are not expecting life to be unicorns and roses as labour are lying bastards too 😢

Cynical, but I agree with you. I was chatting with my 20's nieces and they're so idealistic... or is it naive? When Labour are in all the troubles will be over according to them. The NHS will be saved. Police forces will be purged. We'll be better about the environment. Food banks will be redundant. Landlords will be 'sorted out'. They can't say all this will be funded, I guess the government has a supply of pixie dust.
I'm not a Conservative supporter by the way, but I've lived through governments of both colours and they're all the same to me.

No its not, PFI NHS payments are around 2bn per year, falling from 2029, first introduced under the Tories and continued for 4 years under Cameron.

£2bn would even run the NHS for a week.

Why should Air traffic control be publicly owned when they deal almost entirely with private airlines?
Comparing Lab privatisations with the Tory ones is quite frankly ridiculous.

Forms of Income support ie subsidising wages was first introduced in 1948, massively expanded by Edward Heath.
Having enjoyed decent pay rises through out the 2000s and backed up ONS, Labour didn't freeze public pay as the Tories repeatedly did, what your re saying is untrue.

Lab don't necessarily need to tax more, look at the £26bn wasted by the Tories on HS2, the costs of the Doc strikes, the failure to pay nurses more, so we end up paying out far more on agency staff, have recruitment crisis and have millions not working on long term sick waiting for treatment.

The Cons are mismanaging the economy.

You say it as though social mobility is a bad thing.

I am quite mystified by this growth business.

The easiest way to grow the economy is to pay the people who are most likely to spend money locally more - that it is the workers, not those who already have more money than they know what to do with, who invariably avoid paying their fair share of tax and then squirrel the money offshore for no apparently good reason.

Goodness me! Some slightly off thinking on economics here. Growth is about the whole economy, not wage growth! The intention is, economically, not to leave anyone behind. That’s why Labour want growth of the economy too, in case no one has noticed.

How are companies and services meant to pay more if they don’t make more? Shareholders are often pension funds too! Where do you think private pensions come from? You cannot just think shareholders are supreme my rich people living in the Bahamas! It’s a gross misunderstanding of how shareholders and companies work. Many are owned by organisations thst benefit us!

Paying wages that don’t reflect profits and productivity leads to inflation. It’s the equivalent of printing money. It’s not desirable. It is of course an issue when wages are pushed by inflation and it’s a vicious cycle. No one wants inflation. You simply cannot just keep bumping up wages without productivity to match. Labour probably understand that. There’s a huge misunderstanding between a few very rich people and the vast majority who don’t have off shore accounts. Most business owners, higher paid directors etc pay tax here. In fact 40% tax take exceeds 20% tax take so we need all higher earners. If we want jobs we do need successful businesses. Of all sizes.

Labour massively increased in work benefits. It’s well documented. You cannot get HS2 money back. You could save more by stopping it now. All of it. Schools PFI spending takes money away from DCs in school. It truly does. It was a poor idea and no one now thinks it was good.

Goodness me! Some slightly off thinking on economics here. Growth is about the whole economy, not wage growth!

So if you want the whole economy to grow you need to pay the people who will spend money in the economy.
For example. A business has a choice, pay the boss £1,000,000 a year, much of which will not be spent but will be put into some fancy financial device that avoids tax, or pay each of the businesses 1000 workers £1000 more, which they will spend in the economy.
I think it is pretty clear which benefits the economy more.

It’s also why Keir has backtracked moving the highest rate of 45% down to 80k. You actually need these people working full capacity, full time, paying taxes and not moving or putting it all in pensions. The high PAYE tax is impacting productivity of workers at thresholds. The country needs tax from these people to pay for the bills. Especially when the majority of adults sr not paying anything at all.

By the way: £2 Bn buys a lot of books or drugs. It’s hardly a small amount.

I think any party targeting young people would help them too and perhaps encourage young people to vote.

As a parent of young adults struggling to move out with the cost of housing I would support a party who could offer something to help them. I am a poorer single parent, I can’t help my children with things like house deposits. Housing benefit hasn’t risen with the rental rises and there is pretty much nothing young, single working people can afford. All my young adults are working full time, one even has a second job on top of her full time job and she is very frustrated about how her future looks right now despite all her hard work.

I've lived through governments of both colours and they're all the same to me.

So have I and all I can say is that you haven’t been paying attention.

“A lot of books or drugs” are pretty pointless if buildings are falling down.

It does amaze and depress me how little people pay attention.
There was a Tory fan a few days ago expressing surprise that members of the cabinet advocate less education for girls so they stay at home and make babies.

Exactly.

Ditto, and I don't understand this attitude. It's either someone being utterly disingenuous because they're loyalists to one party over another, or it's someone who pays no attention and whose opinion therefore should be dismissed.

I think people presume that people who don’t like Labour must be loyalists to the Tories.

I’ve never voted Tory and we are extremely high income household. My views are more centrist with a slight left lean. However, right now - I’m politically homeless.

This is the first time in all these years, I’ve known so many in my social circles to be politically homeless and feel like they don’t want to vote for anyone in the main parties. That’s not something to be celebrated. The abuse from Labour voters and the simplification that: no vote for Labour = Tory scum. It’s not really helping the cause.

Labour getting in because people have become lacklustre about voting isn’t a good thing. It’s different to 1997. There was an economy, over half of adults were not state dependent and Tony Blair (like or loathe) did have a vision. Many voters who would’ve voted Labour don’t feel like they can. That’s a problem. Not understanding that and just simplifying people’s views is what will see a hung parliament. I remember when remain was a done deal and all the prediction polls showed a remain vote. Look how that worked out.

All the available evidence shows that the the chances of a hung parliament are very small, for instance.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html

It is pretty clear that a centrist, with a slight left lean party will form the government after the next GE with a significant majority.

Edited - wrong thread😳