Westministenders: Where's my milk and cheese?

[RedToothBrush]

The 'smooth' exit from transition now leads to a million and one little things that you can't get hold of or took completely for granted.

Why is sainsbury in NI selling spa milk? Why can't you get hold of your favourite food stuff?

Its a slow strangulation of the country.

In which you get to learn all about the merits of the EU and what a donkey Johnson really is.

Yep.
You're gonna be waiting a long time:(

We have to give people an alternative to siding with a divisive twat.

@Peregrina

I have a tiny hope that the Biden presidency will help to shift things just a little. I am not incidentally expecting great things from Biden - most politicians disappoint, but the current Tories were So Up Trumps Arse, that it's worth not letting them forget it.

All Biden has to do is nothing as far as the UK is concerned. That will kill any talk of this mythical trade deal dead. After all, it would be difficult for official UK policy to sudden become "wait till Biden has gone" (and that's before you ponder a potential Harris presidency afterwards).

The UK can chart it's own merry way these next few years - as craved by the Brexiteers. And if the clear message from the US is "good luck - and don't fuck Ireland" so much the better.

We have to give people an alternative to siding with a divisive twat.

The same policies just framed differently is not an alternative

Fair enough. But most people can't be arsed with political detail. We wouldn't be in this mess if they could.
Starmer is wooden and a bit dull and obviously a grown up. Not as gaffe prone as Biden but maybe that will be appealing after everything that's happened.
Pretty sure more people get shafted under the Tories. Not having that is a good thing.

When that finally sinks in, the deal Boris did will have to be undone. (Which was also nicely addressed by Barnier).

This is where Biden will help. A deal with the UK won't be his priority but when it is, it will be fully informed as to the UK Government's behaviour with NI and the GFA. So they won't get the quick sell out the NHS deal that they were hoping for with a Trump second term.

In fact, economic statistics that fail to take time lag into account will always be suspicious on that count alone, even before you look at successive government's mastery of cherry-picking statistics. Ever since statistics started being used as political weaponry they have been hacked, misused, misunderstood and abused. I can't stand the screams of an abused statistic.

Having identified housing and land ownership as the main source of wealth, there may well have been an initial apparent reduction in inequality in the early 90's thanks to the selling off of council houses. You need to be looking later in time to see the real effects of inequality, and that is crystal clear in generational studies.

Hows PFI working out for you?
It's not - it's gone too far - but that doesn't trash everything else and of course Tories will never reverse it, despite the chumocracy making it and equivalent schemes even worse.

I actually blame accountants for most of the constraints on what labour were able to do - all sorts of schemes being needed to try and get spending 'off' the government books - linked back to the impossibility of measuring goodwill or altruism in financial terms - meaning huge "credits" were never able to be entered into the balance sheet.

This is where Biden will help. A deal with the UK won't be his priority but when it is, it will be fully informed as to the UK Government's behaviour with NI and the GFA

I think any deal (which will be after the US-EU one of course) is probably for the next presidency. This one has made it crystal clear that their only priority economically is the US. Which is understandable, and sensible. Get your economy ticking over nicely before you start introducing trade deals.

It's not like the UK has lost anything, or that anything has changed. I don't think Trump had any intention of signing anything with us. It was just a nice carrot to get Govey-boy to do the fandango. Much in the wasy 419 baiters get pictures of scammers in their underpants.

The closest I ever got to Cornyn was when he used to come to the Durham Miners' Gala and stand in the balcony watching the banners march past. Apparently it is a shadow of its former self, but it is still a sight to see. My daughter marched with our village banner for about ten years, round our village (with a brass band) then into town to join everyone else. These are colliery banners, union banners. Brass bands galore. But I think my daughter and her friends were marching for local identity reasons, not socialism. My (long winded, sorry) point is that you can look out on people in the 'red wall' doing what they have always done, but it doesn't mean that they see the world how they have always seen it (the world has changed, and they are not stupid). I don't think people up here suddenly voted Tory because they suddenly like Tories, but there is no other place your vote will actually count. UKIP never beat Labour, in spite of attracting a sizeable minority. There is a message in there somewhere, and I think the Tories are at least pretending to hear it. I think Labour needs to stop taking its 'heartlands' for granted, and have a good look at what is going on in people's hearts and minds, now. And not just young people, people who have always voted and always voted Labour, until 2019.

I'm hoping that before they go we get electoral reform at Westminster first. To avoid a permanent Tory majority here in England.

While I agree with the sentiment that the SNP would be helpful in pushing through electoral reform in Westminster (to their credit, even though it would reduce the number of Scottish SNP MPs ) how many times do I have to explain that England gets the colour of government that England votes for?

Look at 2015: 56 SNP MPs, one solitary Scottish Conservative MP. Conservative majority.

Or 1997: Blair won with 418 seats. Even without the 56 Scottish Labour MPs, he'd still have had a majority (330 required).

Ironically, one of the few times Scotland has made a difference was in 1997, where the 13 Scottish Conservative MPs made the difference between May being able to form a minority Conservative Government with the support of the DUP. If she'd not had them, she'd not have been able to

It's a commonly held fallacy that Labour "needs" Scotland in order to form a government. It doesn't.

What did labour do for us? Civil partnerships is a major plus. Not being sacked for being gay in the military is another. Equal rights for all by service providers.
Education, NHS - all better under labour.
Cameron did get marriage for gay people into law (much to the Tory party shock).

But if Labour wants England, it needs to be be in more centrist territory. And that's what Starmer is trying to do.

I'm hoping that before they go we get electoral reform at Westminster first.

That's a chicken and egg situation, really. The only way you will get it is when the current system puts the Tories out of office without putting the opposition in. The closest we came was 2011 and the Tories managed to sink that one without breaking stride thanks to Labours backing. None of us here will be around for the next one in 2111, unless something has gone very wrong with life.

Funnily enough in the US thread, I mentioned primaries in the UK. They might be a middle ground that you could sneak in under the radar.

Trouble is if he goes too far to the centre people will just vote tory because there will be so little appreciable difference..

Labour needs to be clear about who and what it stands for and ita very clear to me they have no clue.

@GaspodeWonderCat

What did labour do for us? Civil partnerships is a major plus. Not being sacked for being gay in the military is another. Equal rights for all by service providers. Education, NHS - all better under labour. Cameron did get marriage for gay people into law (much to the Tory party shock).

Nice of you to list all the things in order they'll be taken away.

The school curriculum under Labour was more skills based and (my subject) had more environmental and social content than it does now, which looking back was probably more useful developmentally than the 'high culture' memorizing they have to do now.

Shrillharridan , not necessarily. If the Tories are the incompetent self serving wankers that they continue to be, people will go elsewhere.
If you have the choice between a party lead by a hard working person from an ordinary background and a party led by toffee up his arse twat who doesn't even know how many kids he has, which one do you choose?
If it's a twat and another twat (which was the choice under Corbyn) you go for the twat that will pander to your Brexit fantasy.

@bellinisurge

Starmer was Mr Remain. I live in a Brexit loving red wall area which only stayed Labour because the Brexshit Party split tbe Brexit loving vote. If he'd abstained or voted against, the Brexit idiots up here- who are all "traditional Labour voters" would never have forgiven him.

Agreed. I’ve said the same.

DGR Nice of you to list all the things in order they'll be taken away.

Tres cynical today DGR?

No, I said, they couldn't do that ... then I thought about the last few years ...

If the Tories are the incompetent self serving wankers that they continue to be, people will go elsewhere.

Not given the last 50 years.

DB is in Wales and said that one result of Devolution and a different form of voting system other than FPTP was it showed that the Labour vote wasn't as solid as had been assumed.

I absolutely agree that Labour took its 'heartlands' for granted and it's got to do more now to get them back, but they will be making a mistake if they do it at the expense of Labour voters elsewhere.

Well, no.
The tories are always as you describe.
They still get voted in year on year.

Starmer was Mr Remain. I live in a Brexit loving red wall area which only stayed Labour because the Brexshit Party split tbe Brexit loving vote. If he'd abstained or voted against, the Brexit idiots up here- who are all "traditional Labour voters" would never have forgiven him.

Rest that on the Blair years, he got voted in on a left ticket and was nothing of the sort and the North has been successfully fucked over since Thatcher, Blair had the time to sort that 'left behind' feeling that people were starting to feel

And youre also asking those left behind Northeners to vote for london centric Sir Keir Starmer, yeah ok