Tonight's debate 7.30pm BBC 1

[BastardisMendacem]

Anyone fancy a discussion thread?

Thanks for the morning giggle: accusing me of spinning for the Tories 🤣

I’m a floating voter, currently feeling politically homeless, reporting an anecdote I’d heard elsewhere. Apologies for not knowing the original root, but sure you go ahead with accusing anyone who doesn’t toe the line as being a Tory bot.

No chance. Labour have their own sound bites ‘smash the gangs’.

Yes, that was really lame and lacking in any detail. Let's face it, our collaboration with the French police doesn't seem to have made much difference to the gangs issue.

Just my view but the level of immigration is an issue for a fair number of voters. Thought Farage landed his point clearly about the scale and when we're talking about pressure on housing, the NHS and schools, having 10 million (or whatever the number was, my peri brain can't remember) extra people does have an impact on strained public services.

Whether he's right or not, Farage seem pretty convinced that most migrants are not net contributors if you include dependents. The moral aspect of taking genuine refugees from war torn countries is different, but the majority are not.

If I'm being equal handed, Mordaunt didn't give a convincing solution either and they've got less credibility given numbers have increased under their watch.

I'm not surprised Nigel won on the poll someone shared downthread, I thought at the time that his performance was a lot better than Rayner and Mordaunt.

You may find it useful to do a little research before commenting further.

The UK is politically miles behind the curve compared with most other European nations who are in the main moving towards significantly right wing governments.

The UK has never had anything even vaguely resembling what is seen in places such as Italy and the Netherlands, not even close.

It has long been a tactic of Labour to claim that the Conservatives are right wing when nothing could be further from the truth in recent years. The reason they’ll get trounced at the election is because they are not right wing.

The UK will follow Europe. A genuine right wing party will develop following the GE defeat and it will soon gain populist support and will likely remove Labour in 2028/9.

you go ahead with accusing anyone who doesn’t toe the line as being a Tory bot.

I didn’t. Odd that you subverted a well known maxim in their favour though.

Yes you are a Tory bot on here if you don't worship at the altar of Sir Keir. 😁

The reason they’ll get trounced at the election is because they are not right wing.

The reason they’ll get trounced at the election is because they’re incompetent, divided and fresh out of ideas.

Many of the red wall constituencies are currently blue. It might well be that they are already well represented among 49% of Conservative who prefer reform. Who knows. Nobody seems to want the granular detail here.

*It has long been a tactic of Labour to claim that the Conservatives are right wing when nothing could be further from the truth in recent years. The reason they’ll get trounced at the election is because they are not right wing.

The UK will follow Europe. A genuine right wing party will develop following the GE defeat and it will soon gain populist support and will likely remove Labour in 2028/9.*

I completely agree. The reason I'm not going to vote Conservative for the first time in more than 30 years is for that exact reason.

I think that’s exactly right.

Really weird that you think the Conservatives have been becoming more left wing in recent years, when nothing could be further from the truth. You only have to look at the way they have driven out centrists like Rory Stewart, Amber Rudd, etc.

They tried really hard to push right wing policies before the local and mayoral elections, and we've all seen the results of that. I know they're scared of Reform, but that clearly is not the way to go.

How can we be the country trying to take out trafficking networks? Countries already try to do this but they know the demand for and supply of people ready to step in is almost endless

I think it’s madness to be the ones going against EU / US trend as they get comparatively stricter. It re routes the flow of movement to ease

Anyway no where near getting insight beyond sound bite level lines and we’ll likely find out after the GE

EU will do shift and pressure on it, then Trump possibly

They’re incompetent as a right wing party. They tried to appease all and failed to appease anyone including their own supporters.

Many people, maybe a majority, want a right wing party to vote for. Even now if you combined Conservative and Reform votes under a single banner you’d likely beat Labour at the GE. After 5 years of a Labour government they’d definitely beat Labour if they’re a single entity.

I wish that Rory Stewart had got the leadership of the party. He is the Tories' David Milliband.

Agree. A thoroughly decent, highly intelligent man who had a lot to offer

Really weird that you think the Conservatives have been becoming more left wing in recent years, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Tax is a key issue for many people (including me) and it's at nearly 40% of national income which is the highest since WW2. That's more left wing than right.

Yes, a lot of it has been stealth tax by freezing thresholds and cutting CGT allowances by 75% but they've still been a high tax party which isn't what most people expect from a supposed small state, low taxation party.

A decent, man of integrity

The Conservatives talk right and act left, the Labour party talk left and act right. The overlap is so significant in practice that we can be sure that Reeves will deliver a largely conservative budget in the Autumn. The play of change is performative - although we'll give women a kicking on the way through because it's free and gives the illusion of difference and change when you make misogyny the carrier oil of the progress narrative.

I completely agree with you.

I noticed that too. Who the hell was that guy? It was so weird and annoying 😂

Even weirder was head shaky guy also appeared to be the same guy who asked about immigration?

Many policies are similar, the other parties said a bit about this.

Main difference apart from VAT gimmick as GE fodder is Green pledges including timing on green adjustments for housing. The cost is extortionate for that, and trafficking. Labour will find the earlier green stuff harder to deal with

And CBI / investment raising issues re oil and gas

The rest is close but the differences will strain them after the GE

Yeah, the guy who said housing, roads and healthcare was under pressure entirely because of immigration and then was a nodding dog as Carla told him that immigration had absolutely nothing to do with it?

He must have found her very convincing - you don't get a turnaround like that on here unless it's a reverse 😁

😂if you say so

I was also hoping this would be debated but knew it would be unlikely on the BBC as they don't even allow dissent on their website comments.

I remain hopeful that the issue of single sex spaces will get a good airing closer to voting day.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what remains of the green pledges come the manifesto on Thursday.