Anyone else wobbling about voting Labour?

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

I desperately want to GTTO but the last few years have taught me that ‘any change’ isn’t always good and things can get worse, even if you think they can’t.

I’ve watched all the debates now and Starmer is so… wet. I don’t like him. The first thing he did when women’s rights were mentioned his first thought was men who ‘identify as women’ and how ‘marginalised’ they are. When asked about immigration he squirmed and squirmed before muttering about his role as DPP (who cares? We want to know what you plan to do NOW). When asked about his support for Corbyn he said ‘but I didn’t think we would actually win..’

There’s something about him which is making me very uncomfortable and I just have a bad feeling now about what would happen if he was leader.

Anyone else? If you’re not voting Tory or Labour, who are you voting for and why? I assumed I would vote Labour this time but my gut is suddenly screaming at me not to!

The Blair,/Brown government delivered a hell of a lot! I suggest you have a look at NHS performance stats in the last few yearscof Labour as an example.

Sir Starmer has the very real issue of being deposed by the left, once in office , which brings in his deputy and Corbyn, in my opinion

Can you explain the process for that happening @SlowSilverSparks ? How would Rayner and Corbyn go about seizing control from a leader who has delivered a massive landslide?

This current lot of Tories have decimated the UK.
Mostly under the guise of austerity but Brexit has definitely made things worse.

There's literal shit in our waterways. A ridiculous amount is people in work are reliant on food banks just to eat. The NHS is on its knees because it has been starved of funding.

And the constant lies. Lies on a bus. Lies during lockdown. Lies about anyone who poses a tiny threat to the Tory establishment. Even this week the Tory Press Office twitter account pretended to be a tax fact checking account and spammed lies about the Labour manifesto.

I get not everyone wants to vote Labour or LibDem but please let's rid ourselves of these chancers.

Well yes, and left the PFI tail for others to deal with. It was also that government that renegotiated the GP contract, effectively cancelling house calls and deleting the concept of the family doctor. Don't start me on the money pit that was the PCTs and the NHS funded trips to Cuba for Community Health Council members.

You weren't working in schools under the last Labour government and then through Cameron's austerity then.

You didn’t have to watch children's lives, hopes and prospects ruined as families were forced into poverty by Tory rule.

And for nothing, because austerity didn't work. All the pain and suffering and we got nothing that they promised - only decimated public services and unending decline.

The difference in schools - the difference for children under Labour and Tory was so stark, so shocking and so utterly cruel and unnecessary. Labour delivered futures. They delivered education. They delivered SEN support, mental health services, stability and hope. The Tories delivered chaos, hopelessness, misery and despair and drove enormous numbers of children into poverty and families to foodbanks. And the Tories trashed the economy, enriched the super-wealthy, enhanced inequality - oh and what did Johnson promise with Brexit? That £350 million a week for the NHS has come in handy, right?

I think you're confused about which party over promises and under delivers. Tory delivery could hardly look more paltry, and fourteen years after they came into power everything is worse. I don't remember that in their manifesto!

That's your choice .
However, you can't complain about a government if you vote in a way that doesn't contribute to electing one.

None of them, which is why there isn’t a single party that deserves my vote!

I actually agree, but I don't think the Labour party now is the same as the one we had back then. For all there were some major flaws and poor decisions (PFI, Iraq) Labour had politicians of conviction who DID deliver. I just don't see that today. Many of their policies are indistinguishable from the Tories. Where are the plans to renationalise the railways?

I just don't see anything that is likely to a) work and b) make things better for the very people you describe. I don't think there are politicians of conviction (well a few, Rosie Duffield springs to mind) but in general I think they want power and they're likely to be more of the same with extra authoritarianism and batshit identity politics.

It's depressing.

The same is actually true of the Tories. BJ has a lot to answer for and he got rid of a lot of the good Tory politicians who were politicians of conviction and not just out for themselves. It feels like on both sides we either have raving loony ideologues with no grasp of reality or those with naked self ambition.

I really wish a third party (not the lib dems) could break through.

Time for this again.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/reports/high-performing-nhs-review-progress-1997-2010

The SDP is actually really good, but I've seen nothing much from them in the media. They do plan to renationalise the railways and also recognise the reality of women's rights and child safeguarding. I wish they were more well established with more candidates.

If people quote 70 years and taxes being high what happens when they go up again?

And when channel crossings go up what will Starmer do? His only pledge is to arrest traffickers which can’t work

I can see anger growing over that. Maybe not so much with pro Labour posters on mn but in general

@TaxiCabsAndBusyStreets is that so. My DC started school in 1999 and 2002 respectively. I don't recall a wonderful time of milk and honey in education at that time. In fact the delivery was so poor that our children were moved to the independent sector in 2004 and 2011.

When we looked at secondaries in our London Borough not one offered a choice of mfl, a classical language and three sciences individually taught be specialists.

If austerity, with very low interest rates was that bad, surely people wouldn't have squealed so loudly when they went up and they didn't have spare cash anymore. The same dreadful circs I suppose where the well qualified can refuse plentiful work beyond 16 hours because it impacts their universal credit. Labour certainly needs to put the kibosh on that.

I'd like to see a heavy tax on takeaways!

I was responding to someone saying he wasn't, because he was quiet.

Same logic applies. Just because someone is quiet doesn't mean they can't be a psychopath.

Thank you!

Op I've only read page 1.

Yes.

In one debate he did really well and I warmed to him but, I saw the shadow education secretary and others and I wasn't impressed.
Starmer was appalling against Rishi the other night. When talking about women's rights he completely gas lit us by talking about rape and violence.

We know those threats and yes we need to keep going forward with how to minimise that. But the new threat is self id and it seemed obvious to me where his allegiance lies.

He wouldn't address it.

We are already trying to smash smuggling gangs and some people have been arrested but he didn't say what is happening now and how he would do it differently.

Unfortunately I don't trust him now at all.

I'm not sure who I will vote for.

The first thing the Tories did in 2010 was upend the NHS in a pointless restructure that cost £4 billion. There was no other way of financing the much needed new infrastructure than PFI, the principle of what amounts to public sector mortgages was fine but the execution was woeful because the contract negotiation was done by people without the necessary skills or experience.

You’re right about the GP contract though. That was a shockingly bad day’s work and it’s ripe for another look.

You’re welcome. ☺️

It's not about the 10% of potential green voters.

It's about the massive % who vote for Tory or Labour, despite them not being who they want in power. If they took their vote elsewhere, we wouldn't have a two horse race.

It's the tactical voting that ruins it. If everyone votes for who they want in, and the majority was still Tory or Labour, then fair enough. But the more likely scenario would be no one would be FPTP and things would have to change. Whether that's coalitions or policies would have to be adjusted (and implemented) to gain voters and confidence.

We can change this. We just have to think about it properly.

Whilst I don't agree with his politics, I like Starmer. I think he's a far better man than Blair and I respect his family values and how, despite having a picture perfect family, he refuses to use them for publicity. I rather hope history will be kind to him.

Whereas the Tories have destroyed state education so comprehensively that now I, a lifelong Labour supporter and previous state school teacher, have put my kids in private school - and I'll still vote for Labour and their VAT policy. Because I watched children lives ruined - I saw it happen. Child poverty has rocketed under the Tories. The stats are available for anyone to see. And I saw it happen, and I saw what it did.

The crisis engulfing our schools now does make education in the early 00s look like a land of milk and honey in comparison (and believe me, I am well aware of the ways in which it wasn!) It is off the scale now.

Slightly off topic but listening to Trump / Biden debate sounds like Biden in trouble

Fark

US, EU and Aus all stronger on borders. And us? What will happen here as people movement re routes

And generally. We’ll be the ones carrying higher green costs and trafficking due to slightly left gov v right elsewhere.

2006, college of midwives pleading with Blair over cuts and underfunding

I think history will be much kinder to Starmer than current commentary suggests. A lot of the criticism thrown at him is reminiscent of the criticism Attlee faced, a PM who came to power at a time of huge challenge and whose government achieved miracles. It was a different world then but the parallel is clear - a debt ridden country on its knees with a PM widely regarded to be weak and lacking in charisma.

Maybe in London.

My sister and I were at school further North at a similar time. All state schools in our area offered what you're saying none did.

I did more GCSEs than average because of the specialist subjects we could opt to take. I did a class in Latin. We had a choice of three MFLs. All three sciences taught separately and could be taken as separate exams.

Private school was never an option for us, but it wasn't necessary for a good education.

I no longer live in that area, as despite the decent schooling, the jobs were sparse. But it set me up to forge a decent career elsewhere.

Our labour candidate has been parachuted in from outskirts of London. They have zero links with my area which is in the East Midlands