Farage is leader of the opposition

[Aladdinzane]

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-live-updates-reform-labour-tories-3110227

Farage is claiming he is the de facto leader of the opposition and that he should get a head to head debate with Starmer. His party currently holds no seats.

What do you think?

Is someone positioning himself for something after the election?

He's so much like Alan Partridge.

There has to be some kind of bar or guideline for who gets to participate in election debates, and it makes sense that it is parties who have a certain number of MPs.

it is an interesting situation though where a party with none is looking like they could end up being official opposition, or I suppose theoretically even the government.

My thought is that where that is the case, it's better for the public to see the leaders debate. But I don't know quite what the mechanism would be to decide when that should happen. It would be to the advantage of the other parties to leave out contenders so it probably shouldn't be up to them.

Whether people like the leaders or not, or whether they are twits, isn't really relevant imo.

Nobody cares who you’re voting for

Speak for yourself, I care. Everyone should care when people are so disaffected with the status quo that a protest party has their vote, especially when they are gaining in popularity as we move towards the g.e.

Reform won't be the official opposition as they won't have enough MPs. They won't have enough people to put up MPs in most constituencies.

The opposition is the party with the second greatest number of MPs. It's nothing to do with vote share.

It's scary that people don't understand the basics of how our democracy works and just believe whatever comes out of NF's mouth.

He’s just a third wheel puppet used to make people believe there’s more choice.

I am concerned about the ‘open boarder’ policies of some of the other parties

Does @CountryBear the 'secondary teacher in her early forties'(????) who posted this above knows something about boarding school VAT that we don't.

Brilliant interview on PM on Radio 4 yesterday (Friday). The interviewer asked a polling expert whether the media frenzy around Farage actually increased support for him. Pricking her London Media Bubble, the expert reminded the interviewer that people who support Reform/Farage were very unlikely to listen to Radio 4 😂

Have sll of the people going on about proportional representation forgotten that we had s referendum on this,and hardly anybody voted.

Farage's so called plans to sort the NHS include cutting tax and giving all NHS workers a tax free income. And giving a tax break to people who use private healthcare.

Clearly Farage is not a stupid man. He doesn't actually believe that you can run a health service on very little money. He just thinks voters are stupid.

The European insurance based systems all cost a lot more per head than the NHS. They spend a third more than us, at least. Why does Farage think it would be cheaper here? If anything it would cost more due to the poverty and health inequality that is so much worse here than elsewhere (more people on benefits, addicted, obese etc)

The immigration issue is so bad partly because the Tories didn't staff the departments properly leading to 2 year delays in cases being heard. This is the cause of the need for housing them in hotels, barracks etc. Apart from that the UK takes far fewer asylum seekers than other European countries. Most asylum seekers stay near their country of origin. Then some stay in other European countries. Only a small minority make it as far as the uk. This problem is constantly misrepresented by the press. The existence of asylum seekers is largely due to western foreign policy.

I suspect this might change now.

I also think it would affect the votes and seats that parties like the Lib Dems and Greens get as well.

Putting record funding into it has made the NHS worse. So there is clearly no evidence that giving yet more will make it better.

TBF many of the NHS's problems are caused by funding cuts to social care.

No longer can we get people out of hospitals and treated at home, they've got to stay till any care they need has been totally completed.

This blocks beds, means staff can't be reallocated, and slows the entire process down, making things rather more expensive.

NHS funding has been cut, in real terms, since the Tories came to power. Fourteen years ago it's approval rating was sky high.
This is what they do.

We have fewer CT and MRi scanners per head than many of our European neighbours - that leads to diagnostic delays. Fewer beds. Fewer doctors & nurses. We spend less on administration.

www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/blogs/comparing-nhs-to-health-care-systems-other-countries

•	Average day-to-day health spending in the UK between 2010 and 2019 was £3,005 per person – 18% below the EU14 average of £3,655.
•	If UK spending per person had matched the EU14 average, then the UK would have spent an average of £227bn a year on health between 2010 and 2019 – £40bn higher than actual average annual spending during this period (£187bn).
•	Matching spending per head to France or Germany would have led to an additional £40bn and £73bn (21% to 39% increase respectively) of total health spending each year in the UK.
•	Over the past decade, the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care compared with the EU14 countries for which data are available. Between 2010 and 2019, average health capital investment in the UK was £5.8bn a year. If the UK had matched other EU14 countries’ average investment in health capital (as a share of GDP), the UK would have invested £33bn more between 2010 and 2019 (around 55% higher than actual investment during that period).

www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/how-does-uk-health-spending-compare-across-europe-over-the-past-decade

No, that's not how it works. He can't be removed as Reform party leader but he could be removed as PM if the majority of MPs opposed him.

It's not just R4 though is it? I never listen to Radio 4 and I'm sick of the sight of him. How many times has he been on Question Time? He's like Bojo. He makes good copy so the media are all over him.

^Yes, this, I agree

Surely what we learn from Farage is that if you are a white privately educated male that can bullshit like your life depends on it, then you'll probably do really well in life.

"He can't be removed as Reform party leader but he could be removed as PM if the majority of MPs opposed him."

What is the contractual relationship between Reform and its candidates? Presumably there is one. How would they replace a leader?

Somebody I know at the BBC was that the word on the street there about his appearances on QT was that whenever they offered a UKIP appearance to the party, Farage took it. Other parties vary their representation, Farage went every, single, time, that they offered a UKIP candidate/representative on

Farage is only the leader of his own personal dictatorship, the company Reform.

Why 'white'? Are you saying that it's only white people who bullshit?

I think what they are saying is that there seems to be a certain demographic that gets away with far more of it in public life?

Yes, I understand that, but I do think it's a lazy shorthand, that's all, and there is good and bad in all politicians irrespective of skin colour.