This country is doomed

[HappyFace2025]

While the vote in Gorton and Denton may be described as a 'protest' vote the strength of both the Greens and Reform performance is something to worry all of us not just Labour.

Absolutely this, with bells on.

I didn't even get on the the truly depressing stuff. The sun will destroy earth and solar system, the universe is heading to heat death, so nothing you do matters in the end.

But on the more positive note, as nothing matters in the end, what really matters is what you do right here, right now. Make your contribution a positive one.

I agree with the other poster - this likely won’t be played out in a GE.
However, It would be worrying because there is (IMO) a lack of any credible centrist option that hasn’t already been sullied by the mistakes of the past.
I could NEVER get on board with either the Green Party (who I think are bonkers) or reform (who I think are racist).

Their policies are not fully costed because no one's is this long before an election. But I think many of their policies are financially viable, for example they are in favour of more devolution and giving more funding to local councils to meet the specific needs of their local area. This has been shown to be a more effective use of public money, as the local councils have the best knowledge of what the local area needs.

lol another intellectual without a single GCSE commenting..

Hannah is a Christian and Zack is Jewish..so where your evidence dear Amber that people are voting along religious lines??

Maybe people have just had enough of Labour and it's showing in the vote (I don't vote Green, Labour or Reform)

Or maybe Starmer made a mistake when he barred Burnham from standing. This should be a wake up call to Labour - not sure it will be though

Wondering if the posters here who voted Green in the past and still support them, actually understand what they represent now.

Which of the greens policies concern you?

The two main political parties are a product of a world that doesn’t exist any longer - the landed gentry and the organised urban working class. It reflects the society of 100 years ago, not 2025. Traditional political allegiances no longer apply.

How is that an ‘Islamophobic’ generalisation? Many high profile Muslims are very proud of their faith and use its rather conservative values to inform their politics.

Our own Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said as much. You’re not claiming that followers of Islam are at the progressive end of the spectrum are you?

And prioritising Gaza issues over and above the long list of issues in this country is not good.

There are already 4 ‘Gaza’ /Islamic MPs in parliament, I think that’s enough.

Incidentally one of those Gaza MPs won his seat after the female Labour candidate was bullied, intimidated and threatened with beheading.

I personally never vote tactically. I vote for the party I'm a member of. Some people do need to vote tactically if they live in areas where someone has a huge majority - they might vote for the candidate most likely to beat them rather than the party they support

This infuriates me. He is the leader of a political party which is growing in popularity and despite the many problems the country faces he has decided that legalising drugs is a priority. What is even worse is that he goes not appear to understand there is a difference between decriminalising drugs and legalising them. There is only evidence for harm reduction with decriminalisation. It's worthy of debate.

If we "legalise" drugs then the drug traffickers become black marketers along side a legal, and therefore regulated and taxed, drug market. Who will produce the legal drugs? Pharmaceutical companies? Will there be limits on where they can advertise crack cocaine? Will pharmacies sell drugs? I'm sure being beholden to share holders won't make pharmaceutical companies try to increase their consumer base to boost profits.

I feel sure he meant decriminalise but the fact that he used the word legalise could mean he thinks the words are interchangeable and that raises questions about his competence to comment on the topic at all.

"if you're a Labour voter, vote Labour"..no consideration of manifestos, strategic direction, etc..just raw tribalism. lol

Nail on the head. The Green party by-election winner gave a brilliant winner's speech about the plight of workers. Absolutely nailed it. Labour and Tories have shafted the workers in different ways over the past 20-30 years and the workers are finally hitting back and have had enough of it.

They were voting for the Greens Gaza/pro-Islamic stance. Mothin Ali was the Green face behind the scenes.
Hannah was there to appeal to the younger, lefty voters.

People voted for the candidate they felt best represented them and their area. The sour grapes this morning are just ridiculous. Labour’s campaign was fucking awful - real divisive race-to-the-bottom stuff. They’ve held what is now Gorton & Denton since 1931 and guess what? It’s still poor. They’ve done sweet FA for the area but somehow are surprised when people have taken their vote elsewhere be that to Greens or Reform.
The Greens fielded a great candidate- they’ve great candidates elsewhere poised to win the votes of disenfranchised Labour voters.
Reform fielded a gob from the South who is a racist, misogynist fuckwit. And still got more votes than Labour.
No party has entirely workable or fully costed policies this far out of a GE, or frankly, even at the point of a GE, surely this is blindingly obvious? Priorities will
inevitably change if they’re in government. Whatever Labour are doing is not working, they’re going to get a hiding at the locals. And yes, we could well be on for a hung parliament in 2029. The split will be interesting.

And worrying.

They are bonkers.

She's in favour of people working hard being rewarded well.. and reducing the cost of living.
Lovely.

Well pressure on housing from unfettered migration is a major concern for housing costs.
Youth unemployment is massive because we have lots of imported people doing rubbish jobs and because NMW means no one wants to take a chance on employing someone younger. Have they also made it much harder to employ anyone with additional regs and costs?

Currently council tax, energy bills and water rates are seriously impacting on people's quality of life too - but the solutions for those are perhaps also really difficult.

When you understand that everything a government does has to be paid for and that tax from hard working people is used to pay that we get unstuck.
We can't (and shouldn't) tax the wealthy more. Everyone should pay fairly according to their means.

For me I am concerned by their election ads with Urdu being a symptom of an unintegrated society. The family vote allegations (postal votes are invisible) at the polling stations are indicative of non-English speaking people having trouble voting.

The Greens have embraced these isolated communities with their Gaza promises and we should all be worried by this and the other bonkers green party ideas.

So you like the fact that the money would be distributed differently? Ok.

How do we pay for the increased costs their policies would impose on the nation - as an example, how do we pay for the vastly increased costs of open borders and unlimited immigration?

Do you know how much extra that will cost each year, and where that extra money will be raised from?

I have always voted Green in the past but not any more. They are not the party they used to be.

I'm just looking at their policies now - improve the NHS, reduce pollution, ensure human rights aren't eroded, rent control (so fewer dodgy landlords) and assisting the care sector all feature.
Surely that's better than wanting to make everyone have private healthcare, repealing the Human Rights Act, and remove workers’ rights and protection for tenants?

How is it not islamophobic to not be able to imagine that ANY muslim might care about any of the other policies that the Greens may have and ONLY care about Gaza? That is, of course, an islamophobic generalisation.

And prioritising Gaza issues over and above the long list of issues in this country is not good.

That's your view. And you don't know that that was the reason behind all the votes for the Greens. Perhaps the votes were because they were disenfranchised with Conservatives and Labour, and didn't want to vote for reform for pretty obvious reasons, so it was the best of a bad bunch. What's the alternative? Not to vote?

There are already 4 ‘Gaza’ /Islamic MPs in parliament, I think that’s enough.

4 Islamic MPs is "enough" 😂And you are really trying to maintain that you are not Islamophobic. Apparently approximately 6.5% of the British population identify as Muslim. If there were proportionally represented that would be about 40 MPs.

This is like saying the Tories aren’t racist because their leader is Kemi Badenoch

I think if Burnham had stood he would have won, so this one’s on Starmer.
Many of the Green votes came from Labour supporters who were protesting against the Government - and also voting tactically to keep Reform out. I don’t think they all genuinely support Green policies, thankfully. I’d rather not live in a loony toon state.
A lot of yesterday’s voters probably don’t even know what the Green’s policies are.
Obviously, the Greens also hoovered up the single issue Gaza voters too, but most places have a lower percentage of Muslim voters so that shouldn’t be such a problem nationally.

You can buy alcohol and tobacco legally, but there's a thriving black market in alcohol (with yummy methanol or occasionally toluene) and tobacco.
Imo it would be more effective to look into how people are drawn into that world and tackle that, or help them get out of it. I've been reading some interesting stuff on neural feedback as an addiction treatment lately. Just enough knowledge to be dangerous, but interesting nevertheless.

The GE is so far away that anything could happen, so I’m not concerned yet. I think we do need to up skill and educate our population- especially when it comes to disinformation.

Reform lied and cannot be trusted- Farage has had a disastrous impact on our economy yet is not being held to account? So we need people who are savvy with comms to get this message across. Alternatively wait til Farage and co mess up - which I’m sure they will!

I’m sure there’s a lot that could be done to turn the ship around. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for government.

Also it’s worth remembering that the voters will feel more compelled in a GE not to split the vote, so it’s less likely they would see GE success vs By Election success.