If there was a GE today who would you vote for?

[87SPD]

Bit cheeky but I’m curious to see if there are genuinely any Tory voters out there at all following another disastrous week for Rishi Sunak.

So who would get your vote?

I‘ll go first, I would vote Labour. As much as I would love to hear more on policy and a firm grittiness from them, I do understand that Keir Starmer is doing the best he can, in that he can’t alienate a large proportion of the electorate so needs to toe the line.

In Scotland. SNP for me. Not a cat in hells chance I would ever vote Tory. The Greens seem to have forgotten what their actual purpose is. Scottish Labour are an absolute shit show (not that it matters given they are just a Starmer mouth piece, and English Labour are basically Tories now)..

I think it's far too soon to make assumptions or judgements about what parties will offer until we have full, costed manifestos released closer to the election.

I'm not making assumptions about anything, I'm just going by what Labour under Starmer have said, and what they have not said. It's the people convincing themselves that Starmer is going to fix various things he either hasn't committed to fixing, or has explicitly opposed fixing, who are making assumptions.

"The last Labour manifesto was excellent but sadly, the media did such a hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn that it was never going to happen and most people did not bother to read it. Personally, I feel that we missed out on the greatest chance we ever had to have real change and a decent, honest politician in charge.*

Agreed.

But a party is more than its leader and whilst it's understandable that anyone has reservations about Kier Starmer, votes should be about policies and not personalities.

In principle yes, but that depends on having a basic level of trust that the people involved will at least try to get somewhere close to what they're promising. Which in turns depends on those promises being rooted in a genuine sense of commitment based on what's right, rather than just being what you think people want to hear. Sadly, based on my observation of how Starmer has gained leadership of and then run the Labour party, I don't believe he has any such commitment and I don't trust him one iota.

And I'm not one of those people who says "all politicians are liars so you may as well not bother". That's a lazy attitude.

Tories are not ordinary voters?

Addressing climate change will place additional costs upon us. We can agree to them, or not and face the consequences. The choice is ours.

Actually, the choice isn't ours because both potentially parties of government are competing to come down on one side of that choice. So those of us wanting to make the sane choice have no way of doing so.

Which comes back to the question of which party might implement a genuinely democratic voting system. Hint: Certainly not either Labour or the Conservatives.

Invest in the people of the country not the bank accounts of their mates?

Those countries that you describe shifting ot the right are simply shifting to where the UK government is now. It would appear that the country has taken a look at what that achieves and decided it doesn't like what it sees. I am sure in time voters in other countries will realise they also have been sold a pack of lies.

Why do you think I would switch to Labour? The major party I have voted for least often at elections.

How is Sunak getting on in implementing the committments in the manifesto he stood on?

For example on green issues?
On taxes?
On investment in schools?
Even on migration?

You think Aus will change it’s immigration policy when the Labor lot won’t run on it?

You’ll be waiting a while. It’s bipartisan it won’t be reversed.

If you look beyond U.K. you’ll see changes occurring. Look at Italy, France and Germany for a start. It’s not an issue that will go away. It will increase.

The UK has had an increasingly hard right government for the past 13 years.
If the opinion polls are a guide, it is clear that a lot of people in the UK have had a good look at such a government and decided they don't like it.

Probably because they think there’s an easy way out of this when there isn’t.

I doubt we’ll buck the trend for long.

Destabilising factors will hit us as is already being seen in EU

This! 👏

Yes this is a left leaning Tory government in spite of what some people like to say. The waters have been muddied since 2010 when the Tories lost the election. Yes that’s what I said. Few people remember that we had a coalition government between 2010 and 2015. People may not have a lot of good to say about the lib dems in government but we shouldn’t dismiss their influence completely. Two such are 1. They allowed Cameron to get away with un-conservative policies, and 2. They stopped us having an election between 2010 and 2015, however much we disliked what the government was doing, through the fixed term parliament act.

If your point is that Starmer's credibility is no worse than that of the current crop of Tory leaders, then fine - point scored. Not exactly a glowing recommendation though. 😆

I certainly hope I didn't give the impression that because Starmer is so untrustworthy I'd be voting Tory instead. In fact I started on this thread by saying that I'd sooner sodomise myself with a carving knife. Difficult to work out how I could make the point any clearer.

Wow!

I that doesn't even include that they've practically legalised rape. And as for they old "at least they know what a woman is" self ID was a Tory idea and the entire trans shitshow has unfolded on their watch.

Labour wouldn't have had 13 years of Austerity, whilst it was needed for 3 or 4 years, it shouldn't have carried on, interest rates super low and Labour consistently called for investment in public services.
No other party would have had a referendum on Brexit, Labour never had an ERG wing.

We'd have had a better response to Covid, not run down PPE stocks, remember Blair/Brown built them up.

The country would have been completely different had the Tories not been in.

For the anti Corbynites, he'd never had gotten into the leadership roll either, so you can't argue that he'd have been PM.

Labour would have supported Ukraine too.

On ULEZ, Uxbridge by election had a turn out of around 40% ? and its a single issue but even then, just 400 votes in it.

Outside of Covid support (which govts of both the left and right did) what left leaning policies have the Tories given us?

They decimated public services, whilst at the same time wacked taxes up.

I could list a few positives Thatcher or Major did for the UK, but this last 13 years of Tory rule has just been one disaster after another.

& no i don't agree the LDs had much influence, they were very much the junior partner, the Cons held all the high offices of state.... PM, Foreign, Defence, Health

@jgw1

"Invest in the people of the country not the bank accounts of their mates"

+++

Hmmm it's empty populist political soundbites like this that got us into the mess we are in. At least @Howpo has given a more thought out response.

What exactly does invest in the people of the country even mean? Higher spending on education, NHS? If so where exactly is the money coming from?

"Not the bank accounts of their mates" - presumably you mean the waste of public funds on PPE contracts. But at the time the public was clamouring for more PPE for the NHS and didn't care how it was done so long as it was quick. Of course after the panic it was easy to see and complain money wasted but at the time it was in line with what the voters wanted.

It is similar to other populist but empty political sound bites such as:

"Let's take back control " - of what exactly do we not have control of?
"Tax the rich" - without ever defining who the rich are - top 25%, top 10%, top 1%. Plus if you go for a smaller percentage of "rich" then it doesn't actually raise that much revenue because of the smaller number of income earners.
"Govern for the many not the few" - what does this even mean?
"Brexit means Brexit" - my all time favourite for the hard of thinking.

You missed levelling up and build back better from your list.

What a whole series of meaningless drivel the Tories have fed us for years.

Yes this is a left leaning Tory government in spite of what some people like to say.

I agree. If there was a feasible alternative that was less so, I'd happily shift my vote away from the conservatives. But there isn't.

In the same way that diehard Labour supporters couldn't ever conceive of voting Conservative, I will never vote Labour (or Lib Dem). I respect that others feel differently to me though and it's vanishingly unlikely that Labour won't win the next election.

@jgw1

Ahhh!! How could I have missed out "Build back better" that was a classic!

To be fair the Tories don't have a monopoly on empty political slogans try these:
"Build an NHS fit for the future " - Labour
"It's time for real change " - Labour
"People deserve a fair deal" - LibDems

The Greens are the only ones to distinguish themselves with "For a fairer greener country " - which is much better but kind of what I would expect from the Green Party.

Sadly it's empty political slogans / sound bites that get politicians elected. Maybe I should set up a new political party with the slogan "Gonna make stuff better"?

To be fair the Tories don't have a monopoly on empty political slogans try these:
"Build an NHS fit for the future " - Labour

How is that empty? The last Labour government invested in the NHS, improved services and massively reduced waiting times, after decades of deterioration under the Tories.

The Greens are the only ones to distinguish themselves with "For a fairer greener country " - which is much better but kind of what I would expect from the Green Party.

I’m not sure about this as Labour’s is exactly the same atm?

They also tried to rehash Take Back Control which was kind of funny but fizzled out not surprisingly

Because "Build an NHS fit for the future" can be read by different people in different ways that most appeal their own beliefs- a bit like "Build back better".

So for example one person may see "building an NHS fit for future" as a recognition that the current free at point of use model is no longer working, that you cannot keep spending more and more money on the NHS and there has to be a move to a more private insurance model, more like the German system.

Another person may see "building an NHS fit for the future" as a view that the NHS has deteriorated under the Conservatives and it is only through more investment in the NHS (it's actually spending but calling it "investment" makes it more acceptable) can the NHS be fit for the future. But given its the future it can never be known if the NHS is fit, for example Covid was an unknown.

The point is that by making vague political sound bites/ slogans you can appeal to and get votes from both very different sides of the argument.

@Howpo

"Labour wouldn't have had 13 years of Austerity, whilst it was needed for 3 or 4 years, it shouldn't have carried on, interest rates super low and Labour consistently called for investment in public services.
No other party would have had a referendum on Brexit, Labour never had an ERG wing.

We'd have had a better response to Covid, not run down PPE stocks, remember Blair/Brown built them up.

The country would have been completely different had the Tories not been in."

++++

You are absolutely correct on Brexit and the referendum- the Tories completely own that massive self harm although backed by 17 million voters.

On the austerity, its aim was to reduce levels of Government borrowing and debt built up under Labour. In that regard it wasn't that successful (see graph) although one has to ask what levels of debt would have been without the austerity measures. In any event by 2015 the Conservatives have effectively stopped austerity measures saying they would balance the books over a longer time horizon.

Interest rates were indeed super low but increasing spending on public services by increasing debt even more would have had the effect of increasing interest rates and inflation.

In short I don't think it would have been that different if Labour were in power for the last 13 years and could well have been a lot worse.

Anything on debt would have to take into account PFI which was off the government books. But we’re still paying back.