To think Kemi Badenoch is starting to talk an increasing amount of sense

[Sonato]

Never voted conservative a day in my life.

Seriously comsidering it after recent performances

It is really difficult because none of them have a sensible economic prospectus or seem even willing to raise publicly the main issues which need to be addressed, let alone actually implement the obvious changes required. And then of course we must consider that what is stated in manifestos isn’t worth the paper it is written on, as everyone has discovered at great cost since 2024.

The economic policies of both the Greens and Reform are complete cloud cuckoo land so if anybody wants any hope of rising living standards (or even no further decline) then clearly they cannot vote for either of these. Labour said the right things to get elected but have done the opposite, as I feared would be the case (it was clear based on discussions prior to the election that Reeves had no intention of following through with her promise of “laser focus on growth” and pretty much every economic measure she has implemented has had the opposite effect, with it known beforehand by her that this would be the case) so Labour isn’t an option either for anybody who cares about the cost of living/ tax rates/ growth/ living standards. Not as dire and insane as Reform or the Greens, but still making things worse than they would be if the Government had literally done nothing at all since being elected. And now there is the prospect of their leadership being replaced with people who would do even more damage to the economy, as is always the risk where we elect a party not a PM/ Chancellor.

The Conservatives aren’t an option until they purge the Brexiteers (including Kemi) and return to some sanity focusing on competent economic management rather than nonsense social policy issues and obsessing about Reform. That’s mow difficult for them to do because they have some few MPs left anyway and drove everybody competent out of their party in 2019 under Johnson. It will probably take a couple of electoral cycles before they return to a more socially liberal but “one nation” centre ground prudent fiscal position again and become electable. Led by Kemi they continue to be a disaster and not focusing at all on any of the policy areas that would improve things.

The least-worst of the options available to us therefore seems to be the Lib Dems. They, like all the others, have some fairly insane things to pander to the mob written in their manifestos. But they appear to have some fairly sensible MPs who have a decent and balanced grasp of economic issues and Ed Davey himself is a sensible and compassionate centrist who understands trade-offs and balance and listens to people, and genuinely seems to want to act for the public good. As a person I think he is actually a decent human being: he cared for his sick mother who died when he was a very young man and he has a disabled son so he does actually grasp some of the difficulties of life with which many people have to grapple. I believe that he is the only party leader at the moment who at least has good motivations for being in politics and genuinely wants to improve things for people rather than just himself and an obsessive pursuit of power.

He’s far from perfect and has blind spots as do all human beings and he made some serious mistakes/ went along with things that were stupid when in the coalition Government previously but at least has some experience of senior roles in Government and what is involved unlike Polanski/ Farage, and was capable of doing his job unlike Kemi, so out of the 5 options we have at present, the Lib Dems are almost certainly the least-worst if we wanted to heal social divisions, make rational policy based on evidence, and have decent economic governance that may lead to a prospect of growth. Their pro-Europe stance is essential for growth to take place and living standards to rise and their current MPs seem mostly sensible and balanced regarding the trade offs required to balance tax and services, in spite of some fairly wild and silly things in their manifesto (like all of the parties, but manifestos are really just propaganda to appease party members and quite meaningless anyway).

They are FAR from a perfect option, and still refuse to address a number of critical economic issues to which obvious solutions are available, but at least with them there could be some level of confidence they would be trying to behave sensibly for the good of the country as a whole and they have some MPs that seem to have a grasp of economic issues and the fact that nothing will improve until these are addressed, unlike the others who instead spending most of their time on childish soundbites about socially divisive side-issues which are largely the effect of the economic decline, not the cause.

Overall, it is a depressing analysis that this is the best we can do but out of the options we have at present, they seem to be by far the least useless currently available who at least won’t make things substantially worse than they are already.

because that's the only womens issue that matters on MN right? Never mind maternity leave, proper womens healthcare within the NHS, abortion rights (which the CONs as a whole repeatedly vote against)

IF you look through her voting record there is very little in there that supports womens roles in the workplace or in the family.

This is a fantastic post, and you very eloquently have said everything that i have also come to the same conclusion with!

Yes and I will be voting Conservative tomorrow

I love the fact that you ignore the substance of the post, and go ad hominem.

Brilliant.

The Lib Dems who propped up the Tories in 2010?

they're a different beast to the party from 2010. But don't let that stop you trying to needle.

The post had nothing to do with the subject of the thread.

@Senescence Re: Ed Davey he made some serious mistakes/ went along with things that were stupid when in the coalition Government previously but at least has some experience of senior roles in Government and what is involved

Thank you for your post but I would have huge problems with this. Davey served as a minister under Cameron and we had austerity, pension age for women pushed further away suddenly, tuition fees. A lot of us have suffered in many ways because of that coalition. We also had Vince Cable selling off Royal Mail in a way that did not benefit the people of this country as much as it should - but it did benefit cronies of Cameron. Subsequently, we had Davey refusing to meet Alan Bates. Please do not forget all of this when considering the LibDems in power again.

It’s an open forum - most threads dance around the thread topic.

Speaking of topicality - Starmer’s tenure is clearly front and centre with respect to tomorrow’s local and devolved elections.

As much as you wish it wasn’t.

Remember, Labour brought this upon themselves.

According to the PP, you aren’t permitted to post about anything other than Kemi Badenoch.

Naughty, naughty!

You brought in a post about Angela Rayner which was a lot more than "dancing round the thread topic". It was unrelated to the subject of the thread.

Agree. And the claim that Israel’s actions are 'escalating misery and hatred around the world' is quite a bold one.
No mention of Iran and their proxies of course, including Hamas.

Personally I would like to see the Conservative Party provide robust and credible opposition and be led by a one nation Tory. Badenoch is not the sort of politician I want to see fronting the opposition, but of course Johnson got rid of the one nation Tories in the party.

@HermioneWeasley Yesterday 21:12

“Islamophobia” is a term made up by the Muslim brotherhood to deflect legitimate questioning of Islamic extremism. For example 75% of Mi5’s watch list are Muslim.

All the attacks on British Jews have been carried out by Muslims.

Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs used allegations of racism to keep operating.

Cousin marriage is causing material strain on the NHS in parts of the UK. We need to be able to discuss these things.

Middle Eastern countries are baffled as to why we tolerate extremism.

if you think Israel is more of a problem than Iran, Russia, China or the Taliban then you come across as motivated by anti semitism.'

Yes agreed 100%. Some people don't like those truths of course.

Apply your rules to other posters (bet you don’t).

So you couldn’t give a single reason why she talks sense?

She’s a weirdo who lied that she was offered a scholarship by Stanford university and uses Islamophobia to bow and scrape to right wingers.

There was no other combination that would have worked in the 2010 election. Labour wouldn't have had enough seats, even with the Lib Dems to have formed a government, even after scrabbling around getting some tiny one seat here and there. They have long advocated for Proportional representation. What do you think happens under PR? You have parties negotiating with each other to try and form a government. it would have been a bit stupid of them to advocate for PR and then say they weren't going to try and negotiate with the largest party to try and form a government. It was the Lib Dems that stopped the Tories going stupid over Europe. Then once the were punished (again by their voters for something that has to happen under PR- negotiation over manifesto promises, meaning there are some things a minority in a coalition cannot do, like abolition of tuition fees) then they had no choice but to pander to the headbangers and have a Brexit referendum, which really was the beginning of the end.

What do you think 'Islamophobia' is and how has KB 'used' it?

Kemi Badenoch is not Islamophobic, what a ridiculous thing to say.

Thank you. There are certainly no ideal options available to us as the electorate, and this is also a result of the dysfunctional political system that we have which does not favour rational, long-term, sensible policy making based on evidence. I have no political affiliation, I just want competent government and evidence-based policy making which will address the structural long-term problems that are causing UK GDP per capita and living standards to continually decline in proportion to the countries which used to be our comparators and face the same external geopolitical issues that we face. The fact that we consistently underperform against these other developed countries with the same issues re. ageing populations and pressure on services etc., the discrepancy between our living standards and theirs, is entirely down to incompetent UK politicians not taking the necessary and obvious measures to improve things.

People are unfortunately easily distracted by fairly irrelevant issues which have effects that are an immaterial rounding error in the national budget/ scapegoating of <insert today’s target group to blame>/ misinformation about the underlying causes of the problems and while most of us are never likely to find a political party whose policies we agree with in their entirety, if the electorate want things to improve in the UK then competent economic management has to be the priority above any other issues which might affect one’s vote because this is what determines the feasibility of everything else: funding of services, reasonable tax rates, rising salaries and living standards (which can only be achieved with appropriate management of productive parts of the economy such as trade arrangements, education, infrastructure development, rationalisation of the tax system, etc).

Until and unless the electorate makes clear that the economy is the priority and demands that their MPs deliver on this and put forward a competent and joined-up economic plan across all departments of Government, sadly I think the decline of life in the UK will continue. But for now, in terms of damage limitation, for anybody interested in prosperity/ rising living standards/ a growing economy the Lib Dems are certainly the least-worst of the available options we can vote for.

Precisely. No party even with a majority ever implements its manifesto commitments anyway, and there would be far more reason to be critical of that than a party not doing so when sharing governance so without the power to do what they stated were their aims. To expect this from a party in a coalition is absurd and betrays a serious lack of understanding of our (or any) political system. How could two or more parties if governing together possibly all implement their own manifestos in full when these will obviously be incompatible with each other? It’s a nonsensical criticism because there is no possible alternative to working together to agree a joint approach that is a compromise - and that is democratic because that is what the public voted for in these circumstances, with votes split between these two (or more) different prospectuses.

Manifestos are not legally binding commitments, they are a list of aims/ ideals (often unachievable/ impossible and frequently disingenuous i.e. the party has no intention of doing what is written in its manifesto at all even if it could: for an example of the former see Reform’s absurd policies in its manifesto in 2024 which would have been literally impossible to implement, and for an example of the latter see Labour’s manifesto of 2024 which they have broken repeatedly already and are on target to achieve almost none of their flagship policies at all, especially prioritising growth which was the main one that enabled them to win the election.

We need to look beyond the facile and unenforceable manifestos which are largely propaganda and look instead at the character, values, integrity and intelligence of the candidates and whether they have a sensible and evidence-based approach to things rather than being populists/ ideologues who will say whatever they think people want to hear to gain power and for whom that in itself is the aim, rather than improving life for UK citizens.

See my previous two posts at 15:12 and 15:23. I didn’t say that I think the Lib Dems are a perfect option. I don’t support any political party and am politically homeless in the UK now. It is a travesty that not one party is capable of putting forward a sensible economic plan.

The post of mine that you responded to was a response to another poster who asked me out of the options we currently have available, which one would be the least bad to vote for in terms of not wrecking the economy further, and I have provided my answer with a detailed explanation based on my discussions over time with MPs/ Ministers, my analysis of their behaviour and the competence of the people they have in their parties, their stated policies, and my two decades of working in finance, business, economics and public policy.

@Senescence '......was a response to another poster who asked me out of the options we currently have available, which one would be the least bad to vote for in terms of not wrecking the economy further, and I have provided my answer with a detailed explanation based on my discussions over time with MPs/ Ministers, my analysis of their behaviour and the competence of the people they have in their parties, their stated policies, and my two decades of working in finance, business, economics and public policy.'

What was you answer? In one word, maybe two. Thank you.

Thanks for this analysis. I wish I could vote LibDems but my local council are run by them and have done the exact opposite of what is needed on economics and everything else locally (e.g. spending money on vanity projects and let the roads decline to the point of unsafety, which is not economically prudent even apart from all the other problems it creates).

Plus I personally can't get past the fact that the LibDems are terrible on women's and girls rights and support locking up women with violent male rapists and murderers. A bit like locking a fox in a cage with hens with similar predictable results (most recently Alex Stewart). This is not decent or kind. They are also terrible on safeguarding which matters to me as I have children. They've expelled members for recognising biological reality, this is very authoritarian.

The problem seems to be for the LibDems, a bit like the Greens, that you have extremely different groups within the party, but their failure to recognise reality and the law around woman's rights is a dealbreaker for me as it makes me wonder what other laws they don't like they'll ignore.

So it's going to have to be Conservative for me. It is such a shame Johnson purged so many of the good Tories, but there we are it is what it is now. Hopefully some will return.