To wonder if people prefer the last government to this one?

[malificent7]

The amount of people who are saying they hate this government and would vote reform.
So let me get this straight: many would rather vote for someone who was a member of the facist party at university than labour? Er...ok then. It seems to me that most people are fairly racist and blame others for the state of the economy; immigrants, the disabled, sinle parents, working class etc.

The last government gave us Brexit which was a nightmare and landed us in the shit economically.
At least the roads are getting repaired under labour which is a tangible use of my taxes....and yet people moan about paying more taxes.

Im not saying Labour are amazing...tjey are not but are they worse than the tories?

You’re not keen on Kemi, but still think she’s the best bet! As far as Brexit goes, you really are splitting hairs.The conservatives were obviously in government then and it was their idea, decision to have a referendum.As you said they didn’t deserve to stay in power, but then you’re saying you’d vote for them next time!! Your post doesn’t make sense.

I’d have liked Rishi to have had a longer run as PM - it felt like things were starting to get back on track after Brexit (terrible idea and yes Cameron’s fault) and COVID (not convinced any government would done a good job with that).

I really really don’t like the current government - I’m not massively persuaded by any alternatives though either

Both parties are to blame for the Brexit mess. Cameron agreed to hold a referendum not because he thought it was in the national interest but because he wanted to stop his party splitting. Labour failed to get behind the Remain campaign and then acted against the national interest by refusing to support any of the deals that were put before Parliament.

Prison would be a start. True, we can’t imprison politicians for bad decisions, but we should be prosecuting those who are obviously at the centre of fraud, corruption and lies. Boris Johnson, I’m looking at you. If Joe Public can be imprisoned for lying about who was driving a speeding car, Johnson should be looking at twenty or thirty years for multiple counts of fraud while in a public office.

Of course their post makes sense. Politics isn't black and white. You don't have to love a candidate or agree with every one of their policies to vote for them. Sometimes it really is a case of voting for the best of a bad lot.

Labour don't get to wriggle out of their Brexit culpability because they weren't in power. Their actions during the referendum stand for themselves. Pretending that it somehow didn't count because they weren't in power is ridiculous.

I think the Tories had made too many mistakes and gone stale. Franky they were a mess. Labour had decades in the political wilderness to sort themselves out and people thought that they surely were a better option. People we disillusioned and just wanted to Tories out. This was wrong! Many people regret it. Sometimes the grass really isn't greener on the other side. Sometimes the grass is in fact dead.

Yes because the potholes are the biggest issue to country is facing right now.

I think Sunak may have been a good PM but who knows.
A significant stupid minority (maybe majority) focussed on the non-dom status of his wife, which was legal, and his own wealth and decide the likes of him are not for us and couldn’t possibly relate to the “ordinary” person (wtf is that anyway?).

I agree. We could have had a much better "brexit" had all May's options not been vetoed by Parliament, particularly the left! It's why we ended up with "hard" Brexit because that's what Boris stood for in his GE landslide win.

Yep

He lost a huge amount of traditional Tory supporters due to excluding 3 million self employed, freelancers and casual workers from the covid support schemes. They are the traditional Tory voters! He completely screwed them over and then repeatedly lied in the Commons about it, and unfortunately, Starmer and Reeves were too incompetent to properly challenge him about it as they were too thick to understand the reasons for the 3 million being excluded and believed the lies that Sunak said!

What was the "soft Brexit" option put forward by May that the left rejected? As far as my memory serves me, she went for a fairly hard Brexit from the outset, justified by the ridiculous slogan that "Brexit means Brexit".

I'm genuinely interested to know what the softer option was that you think she was offering?

Yes. I won’t ever forgive Corbyn for fucking up the Labour response to those long years of awful Conservative Party infighting that finally resulted in a leaving the EU referendum manifesto commitment, and then in Cameron actually bringing out the Brexit referendum in 2016.

It should have been a matter of serious Labour party planning and strategy years in advance, the fact that the Tories even kept leaving the EU on the agenda, while Farage was gaining influence. Labour could have effectively poured cold water over the whole nonsensical, nationally self-harming thing if they’d not been complacent that people wouldn’t vote for things that are not in their own interests.

Labour could have questioned why we would ever want to spend the billions of public money and see all that parliamentary time wasted on a potential Brexit, rather than spending their own time in opposition trying to get the Tory gov to make progressive policy to help the lives of people in the UK.

Labour could have teamed up with other parties and demanded clear cross party rules about how referendum results would be treated, and demanded a national an enquiry into what Brexit even actually meant. This should have been done as soon as this became a Tory manifesto commitment.

If Corbyn tore up the plans for that kind of approach then he’s an even bigger, selfish, divisive tool than I thought he was.

Brexit wasn’t Labour’s fault- but it’s a national shame and failure of all the political parties, especially the incumbent Tories, that UK living standards had become so crap and UK people were feeling so left behind in swathes of the country, that so many of them voted to Brexit thinking it would somehow improve something. Or maybe just voted Leave as a furious fuck you to PM Cameron, not thinking it would sway the overall result.

I’d prefer Putin to the last government …

Not totally excluded. Sunak did allow them to take out ‘Bounceback Loans’ which they are still paying off..

If Corbyn tore up the plans for that kind of approach then he’s an even bigger, selfish, divisive tool than I thought he was.
He is a vocal and lifelong brexiteer. If he's such an honest conviction politician, as his cult think, he would have had the courage of his own convictions and explained his presumably 40 years of anti EU thinking. Instead he dithered, prevaricated, realised that his puppet masters in Momentum were pro EU and decided to fudge everything to keep himself as Labour leader. The man's inexplicable legend far exceeds his ability, personality or intellect.

The last 30 or so messages is the first coherent, concerted series of comments on the big events of the last 15 years that I've read on MN. By which I mean, obviously, that I agree!

It’s more of the same and people are seeking an alternative. We’re finally getting away from two party politics which is great. It isn’t just Reform either, they just get the most airtime. The Greens are doing great.

Labour could have teamed up with other parties and demanded clear cross party rules about how referendum results would be treated.

Are there not already rules for how referendum rules would be treated? It’s not as if there had never been referendums before.

Absolutely this.
Labour in the 90’s ie Blair and Brown started an entitlement culture that has just grown and expanded.
It is very difficult to dial back a culture of entitlement and is a big part of the reason the country is in the shit.

Never heard of the WASPI women? Women who worked hard all their lives, only to have their retirement put back, again, and again.
The government is introducing assisted dying in order to get rid of all the old people. So that's one problem solved. Don't say it's not true. It is the thin end of the wedge. This government hates old people.

I would prefer Richard Tice to Farage, but will still vote Reform.

I like Kemi, she is sensible and in touch, but she has a lot of repair to do to bring the party together on some key issues.

Obviously, this Labour government are awful, but it was also time for the Tories to go. Sunak was a bureaucrat, nice fella, but weak - competent, but weak.

I can't wait until Brexit is actually done properly and we get ourselves out of the idiotic ECHR and other EU related hell, and start acting like an independent nation in the interests of the people who live here.

We will all be old one day. We will also see the state pension age rise and rise in our lifetimes starting at a much higher base than the WASPI women.there probably won't even be a state pension by the time some of youngest adults retire. I will be utterly furious if the WASPI women are compensated.

Me too. As I read in the paper today "I can't think of a cause less worthy of support than the WASPI women"

This government does not hate old people. It bends over for them. The triple lock is not only unaffordable now, it will become more and more expensive as time goes on, yet it seems to be some sort of sacred cow.

The Waspi women did not have their 'retirement put back, again, and again' and it is downright disingenuous to suggest that is the case. The original 1995 Act equalised the state pension age for women born between 1950 and 1955, to be phased in over ten years from 2010. The 2011 Act then accelerated that process. The age at which the Waspi women could draw their state pension was altered precisely twice, and the second change did not even apply to all of them. They have always been free to retire whenever they wanted using their own private arrangements, which is the grim reality faced by younger generations - if only they could afford to save for their own retirements while funding current pensioners and paying current housing costs which mosly benefits, you guessed it, boomers.

I was 19 when the 1995 Act was passed and I knew about it then; it was in the news for weeks. The Waspi women must have been pretty dedicated to ignorance if they didn't know about it. I too will be furious if they are compensated for opting to stick their heads in the sand.

I am WASPI generation, and I don't think any compensation should be paid. 1995 is 30 years ago... plenty of notice was given.