To feel sorry for the Tories?

[User135644]

The Conservative Party are a British institution. The most successful political party in the democratic world. They're going through a bad time at the moment and have been dealt a bad hand. They inherited a global financial crash which the western world is still to recover from and then a once in a lifetime pandemic which has further crippled the economy. Now there's wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Really unfortunate circumstances for them to operate in.

It looks like they're going to get a really bloody nose in the next election. Starmer has taken the centre ground and now Reform are starting to steal their MPs as well as voters. Now even their biggest donor is caught up in a scandal. When it rains it pours.

How can they recover from this? Can they recover from this?

The Tories are the great survivors but it's hard to see how they can win the next election, or maybe even the one after that.

The global financial crash may have been 16 years ago, but for many of those 16 years the country has not had a functioning government that was interested in supporting the people of the country and really the only people to blame for that are But Jeremy Corbyn and those who did not vote for him.

I don't feel sorry for them at all. If they had provided effective opposition

Is anyone else fed up with the victim blaming here ? What's the difference between that view and saying an assault victim "should have fought back more" ?

None whatsoever. It’s the last resort of the desperate.

Comparing a political party with an assault victim is bizarre, and actually insulting.

The labour party were not victims, they didn't do well enough at convincing people to vote for them. That's like saying someone who comes 2nd in a sports race is a victim of the winner being faster than them!

What you mean is they didn’t lie like Tories did in the last election campaign and promise deprived parts of the country the moon. Now all those lies and false propaganda have come home to roost.

Comparing a political party with an assault victim is bizarre, and actually insulting.

So is the slightly insidious idea that things would somehow not be this shit if the opposition in a winner takes all political system are somehow culpable for the behaviour of the party in power. Which is the thrust of this thread.

"The Tories are shit"
"Only because Labour allow it".

Just because you haven't got to Rome doesn't mean you aren't on the road.

I have never said the Tories did lie, of course they did, all politicians lie - i got an interesting insight into it when an MP was in my NCT group - the way she was and the way she presented herself on the campaign trail were so different it was laughable. And she got found out, and lost her seat in the last election

I work for the NHS so am no fan of them, but just stating a facts - labour did not inspire people to vote for them and the let the Conservatives win. It wasn't a hard race against the incompetent idiot that is Boris Johnson, but somehow they still managed to lose.

They are nasty, selfish, self-serving twats. I don't get the support for them - unless you are wealthy, of course.
I am old enough to remember the awfulness of the 80s under Thatcher, and how grim it all was. We're just about there again.
I'm not saying Labour are the saviours, but I think they are a damn sight better than this bunch, who are stripping out every public service they can, before their inevitable defeat.

@User135644

please seek medical help if you thought your post was serious.

also seek mental health to that as well if think that Brexit hasn’t caused so much harm and lack of hope

I used to be of the opinion that every party had people that were MPs for the right reasons, and MPs that were in it for the wrong reasons.

I can't see how that can be true of the Tory party right now. Any MP in it for the right reasons would have deserted that party long before now. They have shown themselves, time and time again, to be self serving and corrupt. They can't get out of power soon enough imo.

Can twist anyway you want. But the facts are

• this Tory government has been shit
• labour did not do enough to stop them getting back into power at the last election
• Many people have a perception that things would have been better if labour had got into power - we wint know if that true as they didn't, but its fairly likely as would be hard to be worse than the current government

So yes, labour are indirectly culpable. Not stopping something bad from hapenning, when it's in your power to do so (lets face it, Johnson wasnt exactly a strong candidate to have to beat) , carries a degree of responsibility in public office.

Labour are pretty much being handed this election on a plate. Then again they were pretty much handed the last one, but they dropped it. Let's hope same doesn't happen again!

Johnson wasnt exactly a strong candidate to have to beat

He was the strongest candidate since Thatcher. You’re just rewriting history here.

So yes, labour are indirectly culpable. Not stopping something bad from happening, when it's in your power to do so (lets face it, Johnson wasn't exactly a strong candidate to have to beat) , carries a degree of responsibility in public office.

What "power" does Labour have ? What laws can they pass. What policies can they enact ? Fuck all, that's what. Fuck all of fuck all. Because that's our system.

Maybe Labour haven't been the opposition you or I) wanted. But to suggest they had any agency in being able to stop the current government is a little bit disingenuous to say they least.

Labour are pretty much being handed this election on a plate. Then again they were pretty much handed the last one, but they dropped it.

Again, completely untrue. Labour was consistently at least ten points behind in the polls for the six months before the 2019 election.

Why? Because he was a laugh?

Johnson was and is a very good political campaigner. That was the start and end of his talent.

He was not a leader of any kind and a lot of people knew that.

Absolute bullshit. The strongest candidate since Thatcher (not that I liked her, but I recognise her electability) was Cameron. Cameron effectively buried himself with one stupid policy and it’s been downhill for them ever since.

Yes, because he was a laugh, some people actually gave that as a reason for their vote. And the bloody eternal Get Brexit Done which became like a religion amongst a sector of voters (who are probably now mostly dead).

And yet he lasted just over three years, at which point he was forced to resign due to multiple issues that lead to many resignations - he hung on as long as he could but it became untenable.

Much of the country knew he was an entirely unsuitable candidate. If he was the strongest, it doesn't say much for anyone else!

Sorry, I think I worked the wrong post!

None of which has anything to do with his popularity in December 2019 which was when he led his party to a landslide victory.

The 'power' to have won the last flippin' election. But they didn't!

And that is exactly my point - if he was presenting as the strongest candidate, then the other party did a really shit job at campaigning

So do you view 'strongest' as 'most popular'?

I certainly don't!!

And I'm aware that the things that lead to his downfall weren't apparent at the time he was elected - which is why I made the point that many of us could see that he would be a bad choice, before he was elected. It's like Brexit. Many of us knew it wasn't a good idea - but for reason it got a majority vote.

I think we are talking about different things.

I'm talking about him being made prime minister. Other parties had nothing to do with that.