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.

Hear hear!!

Economic growth was actually returning, and the government's deficit reducing, during the last year of Gordon Brown's premiership. Austerity was the wrong policy for recovering from a financial crisis - that's been known since the aftermath of the great depression but it was sold to the gullible public anyway cos "the public finances are just like a household budget, dontcha know", so that it could be enacted for political reasons.

I've no idea how things would have been under a Labour government. There's certainly no reason to assume they would have been the same. And of course Brexit is the huge one that the Tories unleashed on us with devastating effect, which Labour had explicitly ruled out.

The Tories basically do whatever they have to do, and say whatever complete bullshit they have to say, to get elected, without giving a shit what effect it will have on anyone but the rich. And then because they own the press, they can basically work out after the fact how they'll spin the national conversation to justify it. Or pretend it never happened.

@MadderthanMorris

"The Tories basically do whatever they have to do, and say whatever complete bullshit they have to say, to get elected"

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It is naive to think that only the Tories will do whatever they have to do, and say whatever complete bullshit they have to say, to get elected - ALL political parties do this.

@MadderthanMorris

"Austerity was the wrong policy for recovering from a financial crisis - that's been known since the aftermath of the great depression but it was sold to the gullible public anyway cos "the public finances are just like a household budget, dontcha know", so that it could be enacted for political reasons."

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Basic economics will tell you that you do not solve a financial crisis caused by high levels of debt (Government, banking, corporate and consumer debt) by borrowing more money and increasing debt.

Keynesian economics has been heavily criticised. When used in the Great Depression only worked because of a liquidity trap, otherwise it will cause inflation.

Also in a recession governments increase spending, but, after recession government spending remains leading to high tax and spend regimes or high debt and spend economies or as Milton Friedman said ‘nothing was so permanent as a temporary government programme.”

So why did the Tory government increase government debt so much in the years after 2010 then?

Off government books, this probably didn’t help.

How Labour will fund what people want next, well it won’t be PFI

To look at it another way, a quick calculation reveals that the outstanding PFI payments would cover the pay for all the nurses, full-time consultants and GPs for 10 years. There would still be plenty left over to cover the training of the next generation of surgeons and build 80 state-of-the-art hospitals. If you wanted to keep it simple then the PFI debt would cover the entire NHS budget for over 2 years.

Across the NHS, PFI repayments have contributed to hospital mergers, closures and downgrades. Long-time critic of PFI Professor Pollock argues that these mergers will be followed by the final “wave of closures in the run-up to privatisation and franchising out”. She astutely points out the great irony that PFI was once hailed as the largest NHS hospital-building programme; in fact it is likely to end up becoming the largest hospital closure programme.

Surely we don't need 80 new hospitals because Boris got 40 built and there is £350million extra a week for the NHS?

It’s going to be tough whoever comes next.

Not only are we paying that stuff back still but the aging population means by 2036 1 in 11 will be employed by NHS. That’s crazy.

I don’t know how Labour will meet former expectations given the PPP that funded the expansion last time. It won’t be happening again.

In fact as confident as they sound when criticising they crumble when asked direct questions on funding. Rayner was a recent take on that

I'd settle for a Prime Minister not lying all the time to be honest.

Not Starmer then.

He can’t give a straight answer on the EU or gender shite

thats the thing the devil is in the details its more how they interpret their words and how the public interpret the words etc

@Mountaineer0009 , that’s not going to happen.

It is very clear that Johnson lied to Parliament and Sunak was sat next to him cheering him on.
Sunak has continued lying just the other morning he was stating that he was honest, and then proceeded to make up a proposal about a meat tax to then scrap.

debatable, we dont have to be in the eu, if all the main laws, policies etc match up with the eu rules etc then its all but the name so to speak

obviously i could be competely wrong with my analysis

whats your perspectives ?

firstly how do you define a lie ? then did what johnson say specifically match the requirements for what he said to be considered a lie ?

Bollox. My comment came after highlighting the Brexit fiasco. Ed Milliband was pressured in 2015 to offer a referendum on exiting the EU to match the Tories' promise. Labour weren't unaware of the political pressure - they had the immigration mug and all that crap to try and capture some of the bigot vote themselves. But he refused to do so, because it was obviously a stupid idea that would wreck the economy and deliver no particular benefit.

Your suggestion doesn't even make sense. If ALL political parties simply did WHATEVER they had to do to get elected, then all their manifestos would be exactly the same. It would simply be a question of finding out what most of the public already think and already want, and reflecting it.

Basic economics will tell you that you do not solve a financial crisis caused by high levels of debt (Government, banking, corporate and consumer debt) by borrowing more money and increasing debt.

You do if that debt is virtually free due to interest rates barely above 0%, and it will allow you to make the investment necessary to return the economy to growth.

But no, you must be right. That's why austerity was such a roaring success.

They are all monsters.

Ideally, I'd like to vote LD. However, seeing them frolicking in the sea at their conference, I just thought: you lazy fucks. There are mega problems to be fixed. Many people work 7 days a week. My dh does, my db does.

I will probably vote conservative. Even though I don't want to, my dh business may get sold and labour will tax the fuck out of us for it. As I said, he works 7 days a week, and evenings, and we are entitled to the money from the sale. In my opinion anyway. We've made big, big sacrifices and we deserve the reward.

You dont know what a lie is?

ok

You dont know what a lie is?

Is it something like a woman?

people tend to say they thought x was lieing etc, but unless you use a dictionary definition of it and apply it to the x context then as the devil is in the details you cannot accurately say its a lie

that was from one of the oxford university tutorials about using words and then first deconstructing what we mean by using certain words before we then use those words for an analysis ect

Ever so slightly off topic but just want to say how much better this thread is now with some healthy debate.
Interesting and informative to read both sides without the name calling and insults.

Yes - I'm talking to you OP.

its like when someone asks eg was you at gchq today and you could correctly say i was not at gchq,

because i was in room 2 building x at gchq, would be a proper answer, but because the way the person asked the question, i could say i was not there and they say your lieing ect

hopefully my answer makes sense

I too am looking for a party which pledges to support and uphold women's, children's and LGB rights. I will be voting on this single issue as it is far too dangerous to consider anything else.

I fear for girls and women under the leadership of parties who clearly hate females and won’t protect our rights. The Tories aren’t great either, but at least they haven’t completely sealed the deal to sell us down the river.