Voting for Reform

[Behappyandbehave]

Would this be such a bad idea? I hate labour and tories. But I don't know enough about Reform.

The thing that scares me most about the rise of Reform is their climate change denial/minimalising. We're heading for total climate catastrophe if we don't act now. All life on Earth is at risk. It's so irresponsible to deny that truth.

@Tiredalwaystired

"They are perfectly entitled to take a second job outside contracted hours just as you or I am."

I don't know what industry you work in but nobody I know other than doctors can take a second job outside their contracted hours in the same industry.

Can you imagine an estate agent being allowed to work for another estate agent so long as it was outside contracted hours - they would be fired.

Maybe a second job working in a restaurant in the evenings but certainly not in the same industry.

@Alexandra2001

"People like Farage are traitors, Reform are Putin apologists, lead by a man who is only interested in his own personal fortune and power"

I don't disagree with you but Farage is just the symptom, the key question is why are so many voters (15 to 19 %), which is higher than the Lib Dem's (11%), choosing to vote for Reform.

Dismissing them all as racist and think will simply increase their numbers and deeply divide the country (see Brexit).

I can see immigration as a major concern but also the institutional discrimination suffered by the white working class.

They have support because the Tories no longer stand up to them, in the 70s 80s and 90s, the Cons rejected the far right, now they embrace them, giving first Ukip and now Reform, legitimacy.

Some Tories are supporting a Reform/Tory merger, why shouldn't people vote for them?

Immigration, yes out of control... under the Tories, Brexit has led to the UK having to get workers we need from Africa Asia and these people bring dependants, why wouldn't they? a worker from Europe is just a couple of hours away, could have transferred CB back home, no need to bring their families here in most cases.

Brexit has led to large numbers crossing the channel, we don't have much of a relationship with france/EU now.

the divisions in the country have been caused by the Tories, Austerity, Brexit, Culture wars.... find a controversial issue and magnify it, the latest one is Trans, they never seek to calm tensions.

I don't believe in WC whites face discrimination, there is certainly a lack of ambition but again, who has been in power over the last 14 years?

Nonsense. A waitress can work in more than one restaurant for starters!

And the fact is that the ability for consultants to also do private work was one of the reasons the NHS exists in the first place! It was one of the concessios Aneuryn Beavan made to get the bill through.

But why not Green? Massive ££ boost to NHS, funded by the richest. Four day working week? Renationalising energy and transport? As well as policies to reduce climate change.

Why not vote for a positive change? To quote Stewart Lee, "voting Reform is like complaining about a hotel by shitting the bed, then sleeping in a shitted bed".

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

All life on Earth is at risk.

What an absolutely ridiculous thing to believe.

The earth has repeatedly warmed to temperatures much higher than today and life is still here.

@1dayatatime … agreed, particularly if the reason they are able to work elsewhere is due to their patient’s desperation at not being able to get seen on the NHS. There are some who go private for the room etc, but most are day procedures where people don’t want to wait 2 years for an operation.
Also most people on £135,000 have to work more than 35 hours per week so wouldn’t have the time for a second job!!

I don't know what industry you work in but nobody I know other than doctors can take a second job outside their contracted hours in the same industry.

Some MPs have second, third and fourth jobs.

Our NHS would not have existed at all without allowing consultants to work privately.

See middle paragraph.

Do people also realise that net zero is going to cost an absolute fortune, and in fact all the UK will do is move its emissions abroad , which won’t actually lower the global emissions?

All net zero does is moves the problem to places like India or China, who are generating the vast majority of the global CO2 while the UK generates approximately 1%

Meanwhile the massive cost will make us poorer. But the rich can just use one of their many passports out of the UK

I voted Green for 3 decades. Given their behaviour in recent years, never, ever again. As bad as Reform would be at running the country, the Greens would be worse.

And they can certainly give Reform a run for their money on the misogyny front.

I never said that it was against the law...but maybe NHS consultants should work more for the NHS including weekends!

The UK being net zero will not stop temperatures rising. We are not even close to the levels the likes of China and USA emit.

The UK outsourced most of its emissions to China and India years ago. According to the ONS, in 2021 the UK imported £63.6 billion of goods from China. We ordered this stuff - we can’t just say it’s China’s emissions and nothing to do with us.

Would it? is that why EU USA and China are investing massively in Green tech?

We can be building our own wind turbines, tidal, solar panels, heat pumps, batteries and cars, hydrogen, insulating homes... huge job and manufacturing opportunities.

Atm we are importing much of this and even using foreign contract workers to install them.

Unit price of electricity has to fall and that will mean rises in gas, as electricity subsidies gas, so will have to be done carefully.

The argument that we only produce 1% is a false one.... what if all countries argued that? thats not 1% its 50 or 60% of global emissions.

Its true the planet will survive if we get run away climate change but we might not and its going to happen in the very near future unless we change and that change has to really hit the very well off, or the public simply wont follow.

The EU is going for net zero as well, its not just little ole UK that is aiming for 2050.

Nice idea. But ask yourself would you choose to do that when you could take the rest of your time and earn twice as much?

Postal voted , and yes it was for Reform . Whilst I don't agree with all they stand for , I don't agree with the others either . Firm believer in if you always do what you've always done - you'll always get what you've always got .

However I know they won't get in.

Farage said that basically, and he’s rights regardless of what people think of him.

Net zero will cost a trillion pounds or something wont it? We’ll be paying for that but many don’t see it.
And as we’ve pointed out, the problem just gets gets sent abroad to countries who don’t have to comply or care about net zero.

The same bloody emissions goes in to the atmosphere.

@BluntFatball I thought the strongest leave voting places tended to be those that were not strongly affected by immigration - home counties and the like.

Most places with large immigrant population tend to be broadly supportive. Outside of places where there was a huge influx in a short space of time.

My impression of Brexit voters is that they're often older people who've been scared by the papers they read into thinking immigrants are all criminals. But they don't have much actual experience of immigrant people.

Besides which - immigration has been high because we have a demographic time bomb and it's easier to import workers than push up the pension age, tax pensions, tell people to have children they don't want etc.

Consultants often work in the PS because they cannot actually do NHS work, not enough staff, theatres, scanners etc etc.

Plenty of consultants chose to do only NHS work or very limited private.

Why are so many in country so negative?

The problem just gets sent abroad - you mean manufacturing?

Net zero isn't any one thing.

It will cost a lot. But that will still be a lot less expensive (not to mention lethal, abominable etc) than catastrophic climate change.

Farage sells a vision of the UK in the 70s - when you could drive a polluting car, slag off ethnic minorities, down a few pints and drive home. There is no going back to that. On net zero, we face costs whatever happens. Just depends how much death we want.

Which bits of what they stand for do you believe in?

'oh, I don't like the racism, I just voted for the bin collection policy'

Loving the idea of voting in neo-fascists just to mix things up, like trying out sweet chilli sauce or something.

They're racist bastards. If you vote for them, you support that.