Results like these at a general election would mean Tory annihilation

[noblegiraffe]

Says a BBC headline this morning.

Anyone else stockpiling popcorn?

Golden economy by the Tories😂😂😂😂

Black Monday? Interest rates at 15% Because they’re so good at looking after the economy😂

l don’t remember a golden economy. The opposite in fact

I'm no lover of the tories, but anyone who thinks Sir Kier and his band of merry men and women have any answers is sadly deluded, it will be a shitshow of similar proportions whoever gets in.

Plus the Asian tiger roared! 2000-08 was boom time for China and the rising tide lifted all boats. I’m broadly in favour of a Labour Gov as we can’t continue like this but I wonder what happens when all this stuff people are expecting like an NHS and social care miracle don’t happen. We’re now quite a high tax economy.

By-elections aren't necessarily a reflection on general elections. If you know the result won't change the government you can protest vote. When it comes down to the general election, the result will depend on how many people vote for their own finances vs public services! I'm a lifelong labour voter, I'm just saying what I observe.

It is about cycles. This country is a conservative one that always hinges on Tory incompetency or people plain getting tired of them in order for Labour to win. And the only Labourites to be in power for a length of time were certainly more serious and charasmatic than Starmer and Co.
In my lifetime ( born 1970) James Callaghan, Tony Blair/Gordon Brown have been the only Labour leaders to stay at Number 10 , with Tony Blair being the only one to really get his feet under the table. He had a vision for this country as did the only other Labour Prime Ministers in the 20th Century Atlee and Wilson. Their leadership didn't solely hinge on Tory incompetency and what the Tory's did or didn't do.
There is nobody in the Labour front bench who is a serious person. A serious politician nowadays is one not beholden to catchphrases, mantras, social media, diversity over equality and populism of ANY kind.
So whilst Labour will win, I cannot spot any serious people in their ranks or media support contingent who carries the weight needed to embolden Labour to be the three termer it will need to be in order to put its stamp on the nation, right or wrong.
And the Tories most certainly do not hold the baton of "corrupt politicians" alone.
I'd rather any of my relatives turn Plod than Politician as an arbiter of their good character.

There is nobody in the Labour front bench who is a serious person

l disagree. Rachel Reeves is amazing. She should be pm. I also think Wes Streeting is great.

I get what you’re saying but I think there’s a third consideration which is “do I believe that if I pay more tax public services will improve given the headwinds?” And I’m just not that convinced. Tbh it matters not one jot what I vote in my constituency anyway.

I just look at the fundamentals of how long people are now working vs how long they’re living and how much they’re costing ( because we’re not young for longer, we’re old and sick and dependent for longer) and I don’t see how to fix that without some extremely difficult and borderline inhumane policies like retirement age of 70 and no expensive life prolonging treatments/ operations for anyone over 80. It’s v hard to put a price on another year, another month etc.

it’s all v well saying tax the rich but there aren’t enough of them and the ultra rich ( billionaires) and multinationals are v internationally mobile in terms of their assets and investments. The price of globalisation.

You remember wrong. Black Wednesday was 1992. Once we had left the ERM the economy bounced back with knobs on. Ken Clarke is generally considered one of the best Chancellors ever. High interest rates were in late eighties if I remember rightly. In the mid nineties I started work and alot of graduates on £15k could avoid to buy a house.

Well, if Labour do get in, kiss goodbye to what's left of the British countryside. However useless the Tories may have been, under Labour mass immigration will get much, much worse. Whatever drivel they come out with in front of the cameras, behind the scenes they will make it easier for people to get in and easier for them to remain. Last year, net migration was 600,000. Let that sink in for a moment. That is the population of Manchester. Anyone who lives in London and thinks they are going to "retire to a peaceful little village" is deluded. By the time you retire, there won't BE any villages, just endless housing estates.

I live in the Essex countryside, and my village is being destroyed. Half my local woods have been hacked down to make way for a new estate (including blocks of flats), and at the other end of the village they are building a new estate that is so large it's more like a new town. The traffic is so awful I barely go out at the weekends, and, at times, I feel like I'm suffocating. But it's never enough. No matter how many of these ghastly rabbit hutches they jam together, we need more, more, more.

We need to talk seriously about this issue. If we are going to have a centre-left government, they must be held to account. Politically, I'm a centrist, so the prospect of a Labour government neither excites nor depresses me. But mass immigration does worry me. Remember, the migration crisis is only just beginning. Africa has the highest birth rate in the world. In parts of Africa, women have seven children, on average, and the population of Africa is going to double by 2050. How on earth are we going to build a new Manchester every year? Where are we going to build it? We really need to talk about this.

What worries me most is the nasty, spiteful edge to many Labour voters. The left accuse the right of being hate-filled, but the left are every bit as hate-filled. It's just the target that is different. Debate this issue on social media, and you quickly realize that a lot of left-wing people love the thought of middle-class NIMBYs having their lives ruined.

Whatever day it was. However it was the reason that the Tories were eventually voted out.

And Truss’s fuck up will do the same. No government is re-elected after cataclysmic events like this. When it happened there was some specialist on TV listing all these events in the U.K. and US. They all led to the ultimate downfall of the sitting government.

The Tories have fucked up the economy good and proper. Just like last time. ‘The party of the economy’😂 Brexit😂

As I said upthread, But Wales is the new But Corbyn.

What is going on in Wales, then @Tinkerbyebye ?

Exactly, and after a couple of terms of Labour, things won't be much better, and the Tories will get back in again, in a decade or so, once the voters are fed up of Labour/Starmer!

Yes, of course, some people will be better off (public sector and other unionised workforces) but the vast majority won't be, and the cycle of swinging from blue to red then back to blue with continue.

Just like Brown and Blair screwed up the economy.

In the mid nineties I started work and alot of graduates on £15k could avoid to buy a house

That was because there had been a housing crash and house prices plummeted. Lots of people lost their homes or were deep in negative equity.

God, I am tired of this lie. Maybe read up on what actually happened.

No @ArseInTheCoOpWindow you are so WRONG. The Tories weren't voted out in 97 because of the economy. It was left in great shape. Do you really think they left a bad economy and labour somehow ( by magic?) made it better? The reason labour won was a general getting that the Tories were corrupt(Neil Hamilton etc.) plus Labour saying they had accepted Thatchers changes and a general feel of optimism about them. People really liked Blair - with hindsight they were wrong. Nothing like now - the economy is likely to finally collapse under labour.

Voters often use By elections to show disapproval either by not voting or voting for someone else. This can and often does change in a General Election making extrapolating the votes yesterday a slightly useless exercise

Just like Brown and Blair screwed up the economy.

They didn't. They failed to regulate the banks more heavily or deflate house prices, but when they tried to regulate the banks, the Tories opposed it anyway, and the Tories have let house prices run riot on their watch.

We had far, far better education, public services and NHS generally throughout the noughties. And we could go and live, work and study abroad without being minted.

They didn’t introduce the massive economy screw up of Brexit.

Brexit😂from the party who know how to handle the economy. And then Truss. Couldn’t make it up. Amazing handling of the economy. Outstanding in fact.

Ahem- I think you’ll find that was Ed Miliband’s fault.

https://medium.com/@craig_walmsley/this-is-all-ed-milibands-fault-f221341eb108

No, but Corbyn didn't oppose Brexit either, did he?

Perhaps if Labour had had the balls to oppose Brexit, they may have actually won the GE??

As it was, the voting public didn't know whether Corbyn was pro or anti Brexit!

Regardless of the recession, the country was still in deficit and increasing debt when Brown claimed to be running a strong growing economy! Total bollocks. It was an illusion of a good economy based solely on borrowed money. Any pillock can borrow shed loads of money to make themselves look prosperous!

The Tories still claim to have a strong economy in spite of continuing to borrow at unprecedented levels with fuck all to show for it.

There was no way on earth Corbyn would ever have won the last election that is delusional. People aren't much more enthusiastic about Starmer tbh. What an awful choice.

Well a lot of people were very enthusiastic about Boris Johnson and Brexit.