If you were 'politically homeless' have you now found a home?

[kinkytoes]

I saw an interesting thread on Twitter that said Reform UK is now providing an option for those who previously felt they had nowhere to go.

Does this apply to you? Or have you decided to just 'hold your nose' and vote for someone you'd really rather not (best of a bad bunch)?

@MotherofPearl here is the graph of public spending as % of gdp - as you can see it is higher than ever and far higher than the 90s.https://www.statista.com/statistics/298478/public-sector-expenditure-as-share-of-gdp-united-kingdom-uk/ in actual terms also v. high and fast more than govt income which is why we have a deficit adding to debt and interest payments yearbon year.
That is why Labour have not pledged to increase spending. Please don't fall for nonsense that spending is low.

Please don't fall for nonsense that spending is low.

Very important point thank you @Northernnature

@Northernnature

Two things I would say about that graph:

I don't think we can really include the Covid years as they were hardly typical.

And secondly, the spending on public services has changed. In the past the proportion of spending on things that grew the economy (e.g. education; science and technology) was higher, whereas more recently the money spent on public services is overwhelmingly spent on health and social care because of our rapidly ageing population.

Immigration can help by bringing in more people of working age whose taxes can contribute to the government's income and therefore the money available to pay for public services.

Yep, Covid is an obvious outlier. I think the point is that if you look at the years prior to that, there is a clear and obvious decline in public spending through the period of Conservative government from 2010, mirroring that under Thatcher in the 80s. In fact if you were to superimpose the periods of Labour and Tory government over that graph the correspondence would be pretty clear.

Immigration can help by bringing in more people of working age whose taxes can contribute to the government's income and therefore the money available to pay for public services.

I think this only works if you do not allow them to bring in relatives who need a hip replacement or dental surgery or maternity services. Many will have 4 children.

Public spending that actually makes it through to being spent on public services, or public spending that goes straight into the pockets of matt hancock’s neighbours and thames water shareholders? Problems of corruption, revolving doors and privatisation of natural monopolies make the turnover a fairly irrelevant metric.

You have to click on the graph @Defenestre as periods aren't clear without doing that. That clearly shows that spending was higher from 2010 than it was in the 90s and higher than ever now. I wasnt of course including covid years. And as we get more and more into debt an increasing amount of the deficit is spent on interest payments. Immigration doesn't help as those people also need health and social care as they age and non eu immigrants are a net cost not benefit. Things like restructuring the NHS to a more contributory onevas most of Europe does, means testing state pension and encouraging people off benefits are the only way forward and will have to be done eventually and politicians should start explaining this to people.

I'm a left wing gender critical feminist and have felt politically homelessness for some time.

Tories have decimated public services and have never cared for ordinary people. Tories, Reform and UKIP all scapegoat refugees and migrants when it's the rich who are stealing from the poor.

I don't trust Labour, Lib Dems or Greens to protect single sex spaces, get gender ideology out of schools and to support the findings of Cass.

I feel incredibly lucky because I have a Party of Women candidate in my constituency so will vote for her.

I had to laugh at that...

Reform = Far right
SDP = Far left...

Conservative values? what the fuck are they then?

TRue but they wouldn't come to the UK if they cannot bring their families.

Never usually applied to EU workers because it was a just cheap 2 or 3hr flight back home.... why up root your entire family for that? ..... not the case if you come from Nepal.

Look what we voted for....

SDP are not far left @Alexandra2001 it even says on wiki they are socially conservative. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present) It is very frustrating explaining things to people that can't be bothered to do abit of research. Usually people who think they're clever cos they voted Remain.

On balance, I think Conservatives represent me most, but I can't bring myself to vote for them. Nigel Farage raised some interesting points on the debate the other day, but I'm not sure what his solutions are (obviously need to do more research when I can properly put my mind to it). I know there are some awful things going on in the world, but I do want to support green issues, so think I need to look into who represents me most.

Mind you, we're red hot Conservative in our constituency - DD has said she'll do her research and vote who the Candidate who's the strongest opposition, whoever it is!

I am politically homeless in that I am (very) to the left of Labour, yet don’t love the greens. I agree with elements of the SNP. Never Tory or LD.

I was too young at the time to vote, but support brexit although not on the same grounds as most of the country (I liked the freedom of movement, one of the few benefits). I care about the environment, but care about people more. I am economically extremely left wing, and very liberal although not totally. I will vote Labour but they are not my political home. Neither is the greens, an old fashioned Labour Party would be more my home but I am probably more liberal.

Whilst I disagree with nearly everything reform say (I agree with them only 8% according to I side with), I can see that there is a section of society for whom the tories and Labour don’t represent them. They aren’t free market, low state capitalists but they are socially conservative. The two big parties have moved on in a way and these groups feel left behind. Our unrepresentative political system doesn’t help. Reform UK, as much I dislike them, are gaining support and bringing people back into politics who are thoroughly disillusioned. It is quite scary in a way. Whilst I agree with brexit / am a left wing eurosceptic, it scares me the way it was done and how much support Farage garnered / change he brought about whilst not holding much elected power.

I‘m still politically homeless. No way in a million years would I vote for that shower in the Reform party. Farage and his odious mates can do one.

Labour need to counter the argument that "It's all the immigrants' fault" by pointing the finger where it belongs: predatory private energy and transport companies, lack of rent controls or security of tenure, low wages (etc) and the lack of political will to legislate against any of this. Trouble is, this lack of will is shared by Labour itself, and any meaningful attempt to tackle these big problems will be perceived as an electorally damaging shift to the left, as well as alienating big business and shining a less than flattering light on Labour's own time in office, when they did nothing to tackle the root causes of these problems. But if they continue to let the far right set the agenda, they are doomed to become a pallid copy of Ukip/Reform/the Tories, and that is the greater danger.

Labour have nothing to gain, in the long run, by being so pusillanimous. Opposition parties don't win elections, incumbent parties lose them: and the Tories have already lost this election. Labour's lack of both ambition and of truth telling is setting them up to be an unpopular single term government which future progressive voters will stay away from in droves.

@Northernnature Compared to Reform and the current Labour party, they are left of centre, they even say that on their website.. on some issues, conservative on others.

Yes far left was a bit of a reach, i agree but the point stands, why consider SDP if you re a fan of Farage/Reform??? they are on the same wave length.

..and no i not see me voting remain as some sort of badge of honour, it was, originally, 50/50, it was only after listening to people like Farage that i realised they promised nothing more than a wish list.

Do you think you re clever because you voted Leave?

No real need for that comment was there?

@Brexile Yes you ve hit the nail on the head, i'll prob vote labour but tbh they are very uninspiring.

Thornberry has now said "Vat on fees will lead to parents taking their kids out and going to the state sector"

So that policy will be ditched, no tax rises for the v wealthy not even for billionaires, their plans on the NHS are basically the Tory ones, nothing on sure start, its all very wishy washy.

Labour wont be so corrupt & the Tories need to go, thats it really.

Sad times.

I won't not vote but can't bring myself to vote for any of the main parties I don't trust any of them. Ed Davey is my sitting MP so we will probably have a Count Bucketface type candidate. I will probably vote for them rather than spoiling my ballot.

I have a feeling that anti Tory Labour voting may put Ed in a vulnerable position. They are leafleting saying that they are not a wasted vote in our area (which they always have been in previous elections). The result on election day could be interesting.

So much this. Any time the left vote is split the right take advantage and consolidate and move further right. But this rare time that the right vote is split, labour… continue to drift vaguely rightwards. Which makes the long term outlook if reform do well this time start to look pretty chilling.

No. It works regardless of that, because the OVERALL, NET effect of the immigration AS A WHOLE is economically positive. Some of them have four children or relatives with them needing a hip replacement. Guess what? So do some British people. As a general observation, that's completely irrelevant to the issue. The only thing that's relevant is how the cost of that compares to the input provided by those people's economic activity and tax contributions.

You can think what you want, but a number of studies have crunched the numbers and found the overall balance is positive. By far the most obvious reason for that is that MOST immigrants aren't coming here as babies, whereas ALL native British people (by definition) started that way. It's weird how all the people who are so quick to point the finger at the Asian couple ahead of them in the queue at A&E or on the housing list, are so oblivious to just what a humungous expense it is to the country educating, providing free healthcare to and generally looking after people like themselves for the first two decades of their life.

@Alexandra2001 SDP are on the same wavelength as Reform in that they are Eurosceptic, I agree Reform arts not socially conservative as I am ie I believe in supporting the family as we have the worse family breakdown in Europe which leads to alot of problems. Unfortunately sdp don't have alot of traction in our rubbish fptp system so not standing in my area although Reform are so very much a protest vote for me.
To other posters noone is against small scale immigration or blame actual immigrants, it is the scale that's a problem. GDP may go up of course it will but our GDP per capita is going down (which is the only figure that matters) and we are now 21st largest and falling.

You have to click on the graph @Defenestre as periods aren't clear without doing that. That clearly shows that spending was higher from 2010 than it was in the 90s

I didn't say it wasn't higher; I said there was a decline through that period (2010 >). 2008-10 was a big like Covid (though much less extreme) due to the fallout from the financial crash.

That decline contributed to declining levels of quality and provision, just as the increase through the period of Labour government before it led to increasing ones. People get hung up about specific anecdotal problems and cherry picking them to prove what they want to believe, but really it's not rocket science to work out that overall, once you smooth out the bumps along the way and look at the big picture, you'll get better results if you spend more. That's true of pretty much everything in life so it would be surprising if it weren't true of running a public service.

@Northernnature To other posters noone is against small scale immigration or blame actual immigrants, it is the scale that's a problem. GDP may go up of course it will but our GDP per capita is going down (which is the only figure that matters) and we are now 21st largest and falling.

That should be preecisely enough to tell you that immigration is not the cause of our problems. GDP per capita is stagnant because of woefully poor productivity and lack of investment. Population increase due to immigration is the only thing that compensates for this and makes GDP growth as a whole not look so bad.

Thats about it, they are more in line with Corbyn on most issues.

The two parties are very different, which comes back to why someone thinking Reform would also consider SDP....

@Alexandra2001 The two parties are very different, which comes back to why someone thinking Reform would also consider SDP....
Since neither stand a snowballs; it is a harmless protest vote or a tactical vote.