To think it's not a foregone conclusion that Labour will win the next election?

[flashbac]

I am seeing things here and there predicting Keir Starmer being our next prime minister etc, as if its already been decided.

I won't be voting for them under Keir that's for sure. Their stance on Gaza is the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't care if the Tories get in again. I am so disenfranchised I dont give a shit and at least with the Tories its "better the devil you know" and not Labour pretending they give a shit about people/human rights.

I'm hoping a decent independent stands locally but if not, I have no idea who I will vote for.

I have a nationalist party and possible independent that may stand or have in the past - so will have a look at all the smaller parties though don't think they stand much chance of getting the seat here.

I think if there was an election today, yes labour would win. Nut Tory have already started making populist moves.and they will continue . I’d also assume that sunak will be taken out of power, and someone else will lead them in the next election. Who remains to be seen. No natural successor. I do wonder if Cameron could throw his hat back in the ring.

We had dodgy politicians long before Boris! All political parties have had their share of corrupt, dishonest and incompetent people in positions of power and influence. It's nothing new. Scandals go back decades.

I know that, @user1497207191 but before, it always felt like one or two dodgy people, but most with a general desire to do good. This lot feel like they are ALL in it for themselves, regardless of what their constituents want.

I dunno, I just feel like every single one of the them is a bit corrupt now. I can't think of anyone that I would say is genuinely honest and trying to make the world a better place for others.

eh? What are you talking about?

There’s no such thing as a dead cert but it’s going to take something cataclysmic for the outcome to be anything other than a Labour majority. For the Tories, it’s damage limitation only, the best they can realistically hope for is to limit the losses to something respectable. There is a serious chance that it could be a historic battering for them.

I very much doubt Tim Farron would have made his top priorities the mutilation and sterilization of children, the removal of women's rights, nor would he have accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from a company making puberty blockers. But as a practicing christian he was apparently unacceptable.
The Green party is just as bad.
There is no party to vote for. What choice do we have when faced with such greed, corruption, incompetence and ignorance on all sides?

How anyone could think that anything could be worse than the current Tory government is beyond me.

I’d love it if a Labour victory was a foregone conclusion, but I’m old enough to remember 1992…

For me what the Tories have overseen since 2010 in terms of UK poverty levels, and child poverty levels in particular, is unforgivable and inhumane. Other issues must take second place to this.

Honestly unless there is a sea change I think it's a Labour government for a decade. The numbers look like that. And my money is on that outcome.

I don't think that people understand that the "true" power is with the senior civil servants in the ministries, i.e. the Sir Humphrey's from Yes Minister. Ministers are merely just figureheads and most havn't the faintest idea about the detail of their portfolios.

Same in local councils, where councillors themselves have little power/influence over the council officials who actually run the councils, make decisions, etc.

Often the "elected" representatives are given options by the permanent staff, and don't really have the power to come up with their own ideas. A bit like a senior official giving the minister a choice of having his leg cut off or his arm cut off - ministers/councillors with their own ideas are usually shot down in a blitz of reasons why it can't possibly happen!

I’ll be voting Lib Dem as that’s what I need to do to get the tories out in our area.

Personally I think the tories have had enough time in power and I think we need a party which is different. All I care about it getting the tories out even though I’ll probably be taxed more as a result but quite frankly the country needs it as public services are so underfunded.

I think we’ll end up with coalition. People will vote Lib Dem as they don’t like the Tories or Labour, but the Lib Dems won’t get enough votes on their own, so they’ll form a coalition with whoever they like best.

@thebellagio do you have to be a dodgy person to go into politics, or does politics make you dodgy?

I think you have to be a slimeball, most of the time. To be chosen as a candidate. To progress anywhere.

I have a vision of politics once being about being in an industry, having a perspective of how things could be improved, going into politics as an act of public service to change things and make use of your expertise, skill and connections. (This may be rose-tinted, maybe it was ever thus).

Now it seems to be just a game where you have to be power hungry and prepared to take epic volumes of shit to get anywhere, or else get parachuted in because you're all chums from Eton.

I think postwar politics had so many substantial figures who had been through wartime trials and had proper heft and vision in terms of what it means to suffer or to persevere, what collective good means, what it means to build a better country. Nowadays it's all just a cynical game between lightweights whose sum total of work experience is a few years turning in newspaper columns or doing PR a bit.

I will be voting labour, and campaigning for them, to get rid of of the utter utter arsehole of a Tory MP. He stands for everything I am against and is pointless on a local level.

Cameron would have to renounce the peerage and stand to be an MP to “throw his hat into the ring”.

Being Foreign Secretary from the House of Lords is one thing. Being Prime Minister would be unprecedented in the modern era - the last time it happened was 121 years ago. In 1963, the Lord Home had to renounce his peerage and be elected to the Commons to become Prime Minister.

Cameron becoming leader and taking us back into the EU to undo the harm he's done to the country - that I might just vote for :)

I don’t think it’s that extreme to be honest, general elections are always very different to locals. And the bloody noses governments get in power don’t always translate at ge time.

a huge amount of people are still very uncertain about labours policies and keirs ability to be pm, and as said, the tories are already making populist moves like cutting income tax and freezing duty on booze, increasing national wage, increasing pensions. They will do a lot more of this in the next 6 months. And I suspect someone else make take over from sunak to lead them through the ge. Cameron could be back for a reason. He didn’t want brexit. With some populist moves, and a change at the top, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion, but do think it will be tight.

six to nine months is a long time in politics and the tories are starting to make their moves.

I’m not sure the population feel he did it as such, he was against it, I think they think it was Boris and co who were responsible.

Looking at my MP, he has had a 65% majority for the last three elections.

The second place labour candidate only received 19% share of the vote. There literally is no point in me bloody voting in this area!

I have never felt so politically homeless as I do right now.

I cannot believe that we don't have a credible party to vote for. My heart wants to vote Labour but it worries me that given the absolute shameless, self serving mess the Tories have created, neither Labour nor Lib Dem have elevated themselves to the point where it is 'no contest'.

The fact that people are still considering voting Tory - despite everything we have seen and know - shows you just how poor Labour and Lib Dem are as options. I actually think Lib Dems should be ashamed of themselves - they should have looked at the government, looked at Keir and seen that this was a chance for them to pull a coherent and viable party together and do a clean sweep. The fact that they are still completely irrelevant - even now - is a joke.

They are 20 points ahead!

My own prediction is that there will be a historic low turnout and that whilst labour will get in they will have to form a coalition and do some deals to get into power. It won’t be a landslide or anything like the positive victory that 1997 was. This shit show will run for a few years more yet, red or blue. Depressing.

Labour have moved too far to the right for me to vote for them any more. Keir Starmer is awful and has done a lot of damage to the party. I’ll be voting for the Green Party. I just wish we had proportional representation not first past the post.

I really hope the next GE doesn't come down to either party campaigning on a re-entry into the EU. It's exactly that which caused Tories to win the last GE, i.e. because Corbyn was sat on the fence and libdems campaigned on a re-entry ticket. It's too divisive. It's over, we've left, and we need to move forward now. One party standing on a re-entry to the EU ticket will just alienate half their prospective voters, especially as it's highly unlikely we'd ever be allowed to rejoin on similar terms, i.e. we'd almost certainly have to change currency to the Euro!

I hold Cameron responsible!

He held the referendum for party political reasons, not because he felt it would be for the good of the country.

He was warned against it by leaders of other countries who had held referenda. They always become divisive.

He didn't bother requiring a super majority because he was complacent about being able to walk it.

He put austerity in place that cause so much hardship there were enough people who wanted to give the perceived elites a kicking.

He failed to run a good enough campaign to take on populist sloganeering.

Then he fucked off and handed the country over to the likes of Boris Johnson.