Anyone else feeling politically homeless and disillusioned with UK politics?

[Twister11]

Is anyone else finding the current political situation in the UK quite depressing? I used to be an active Labour supporter and I was very keen on the idea of a Labour government. But the last two years have completely taken away all my enthusiasm. The latest scandal with Keir Starmer in the Commons today is absolutely the last straw for me. I know no party or government is without its flaws but this feels beyond the pale. I don’t know how to vote in the locals. I guess maybe green although I don’t like the local candidates or some of their positions. Just feel politically homeless and disillusioned and a little scared for the future because nobody seems to be able to run the country in a decent way. Thanks for reading my vent if you’ve got this far.

Well as a Jewish immigrant who is terrified about where the planet is heading I am left with not much of a choice.

I am in Scotland and it seems like the choice I have is a crazy SNP woman who said it’s a waste of time for children to learn how to read as they have the internet and a slightly unhinged Labour man who gave a very bizarre talk at my daughter’s school and represents a very unsettling political party. I don’t really know what to do with those options so am waiting to see what happens when I pick up my pencil.

It’s unrealistic to expect any mainstream political party to reflect your own views on everything. Politics just isn’t like that. In my case, I would describe myself as left of centre on most social issues, centrist on economic issues & right of centre on immigration. So who on earth do I vote for?

The reality is that we all have to decide what is most important to us, and what our red lines are. That’s why I voted Labour at the last election, but if the Lib Dems had been best positioned to beat the Tories in my area, they would have had my support.

Yep. I would never have voted labour either though. It’s a bunch of self serving centralists who churn out popular speak with no analysis and no diversity of thought.

Me.
In the past i have voted labour , absolutely won't be this time .
Lib dems ,what's the point ?
Greens ,nut jobs who want to do the opposite to my thoughts and beliefs.
Torys ,out of the whole lot Kemi is the only one who i think could possibly make a difference but i cannot ever forgive them for their 'gallivanting' and lies during lock down .
Reform , i feel uncomfortable saying it but i'm another one who is wondering if they might be the answer but i just don't think i can bring myself to vote for them.
I think it's depressing that the vast majority of the British electorate have lost all trust and faith in our mp's and their parties, and i think that that's it now ,far too much sleaze and lies etc for it to ever come back.
At the moment i can't be bothered to turn up for even a 'protest' vote.

Protest votes
Vote for whoever. ,just to keep labour out
Might shake the party up , enough to actually do their job ,if they take a real hammering at the polls .
I have absolutely no idea who I would choose to vote for ..I used to vote green ..but you can't call it a green party now ..they don't speak for me sadly,not any more .
I like Kimi ,I watched her a bit in action in parliament..but what's to stop her getting in ,and then the conservatives removing her for some bland male ,I don't trust the conservatives,but I like Kimi .
Lib dem ..never ..they were in local power making the city centre and surround a no go area for cars ,with fines .
Labour..I'm so disappointed in them ..I could list so many ways I'm disappointed.
I don't think starmer is a strong enough personality to lead .
I don't think there's anyone else
Oh yeah reform forgot them 🤣..I don't know ,
None of them ring my bell

MMT is not a policy. You cannot ‘adopt’ it as this article asserts. It’s simply an economic theory used to describe how the macroeconomy works, just like Keynesian theory or neoclassical theory claim to do.

If you believe it to be a better description of macroeconomics than classical economics is, then you might tweak your fiscal and monetary policies such that MMT suggests might lead to better outcomes.

I wonder how much of a civil conversation you would want to have with these prize racists https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86ed6e83g8o

Of course you can adopt MMT or money printing by its less fancy name.

It was tried in Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. All of which ended in hyperinflation.

SharonEllis
No one that I know would agree with anything said by these people. An example of ‘bad apples’ to say the least.

If they're just a few bad apples, why not kick them out the party? Why select them in the first place?

Its not a few bad apples. I give you Sabine Maireyand Ifhat Shaheen and there are many more.
There have been concerns about the Greens and antisemitism for years this is nothing new https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cle0e0y4pyxo
So if they were serious they would stop selecting these people. But it is directly related to policy.

Their leader is anything you want him to be.

He was a tit growing hypnotist at one point. Quite obviously a morally bankrupt grifter, as much as Farage, but less called out due to him being at the socially acceptable crazy extremist end.

It's always been hold your nose and vote for the least worst option.

The Tories wrecked the country since 2010 and that was when there were some vaguely decent leaders not the shit show they have now. Evidence tells us that if we want any halfway decent public services and not just a country run for the rich we need to keep them out.

Reform really are the pits and any sane intelligent person wouldn't consider them. They lie. They are racist.

The greens are also awful but hiding behind a very Liberal image. Just because you don't like labour doesn't mean you should vote green. They don't have a decent leader or any decent ideas on how to run the country.

At least labour are serious people who know how to run a country. It was always going to be hard to make any traction in the current situation left by the Tories plus worldwide issues so, Brexit, Covid, QE, cost of living and inflation, global instability etc. Wake up. You are not politically homeless.

The Greens "lie and are racist" too.

Labour have made things in the UK significantly worse so I'm not sure we can be confident they "are people who know how to run a country". I thought the whole problem is that they clearly don't know how to run a country.

At least labour are serious people who know how to run a country. It was always going to be hard to make any traction in the current situation left by the Tories plus worldwide issues so, Brexit, Covid, QE, cost of living and inflation, global instability etc. Wake up. You are not politically homeless.

when they took over we were the fastest growing country in the G7 and doing a lot better than most of the EU.

Employment is falling, we're heading the inflation tables, the cost of living is rising and rising, public sector spending and borrowing costs are going through the roof, Covid hasn't been an issue in the private sector for years.

I am absolutely baffled at your statement that they know how to run a country. Run it into the ground, more like.

We need some stability!

I wanted the Tories out and a stable goverment in who can keep their leader for more than 5 minutes.

That went well.

I am so pissed at Starmer's appalling lack of judgement that's going to put us into a-noth-er leadership campaign.

Its funny because you said Yusuf was a man of integrity because he resigned over the ban on face coverings.... rejoined but then banned them himself - which you support.

Quite how banning an aspect of faith that only really affects Islam aids integration is a mystery to me... more like a sop to the racists who back Reform.

Security? anyone can wear a hoody and hide their face....

Thats the same chart you presented last time, add up the numbers and show me where Labour have had a recession lasting 6 months?

I think the point about banning face covering is that it applies to everyone.

We had 6 months of recession prior to July 2024, we had growth of 1.1% across 6 months in Q1 and Q2 of 2024...

As i pointed out earlier, growth under Labour has been higher than growth under the Tories.

We just had 0.5% growth in February alone this year.

Inflation under the Tories hit 11%, with Labour its 3%, unemployment has fallen substantially this year, even youth unemployment too.

The huge growth in debt occurred under the Tories, 66% of GDP in 2010, almost 100% in 2024, they left Labour with 10s of billions of unfunded costs, NI cuts, Compensation scandals, £28billion in defence spend shortfall.

However, Starmer has been shockingly bad, cannot deny that, his saving grace is he didn't take Badenoch and Farages advice and join in the Trumps war.

"his saving grace is he didn't take Badenoch and Farages advice and join in the Trumps war."

While I hope that was the right decision (and there wasnt really a different choice for him to make given the state of our armed forces) it will be a while yet before we can judge the long term effect on the Uk and security. Trump's approach wont end with Trump. The US is clearly reassessing its' world role.

I don't know how anyone thinks we could put in a law which banned the Burqa and left all other face coverings legal. It would be impossible to frame one.

When politicians talk about banning the burka, they mean a law like in France where it is illegal to wear anything which covers your face out in public, including a motorcycle helmet if you're nowhere near your motorcycle.

It's not racist or Islamophobist, it's a reflection of western culture that covering the face is an intention to hide your identity for nefarious purposes.

And now we have face recognition rapidly coming into use, I would expect the calls for a law to ban face coverings in public to increase.

I think it's a good policy given Western culture. And if a side effect is banning something that is not required under Islam and impedes women's lives and even their ability to be understood by a doctor than that can only be a good thing. There's a reason throwing off a burka is a symbol of women's resistance in the oppressive patriarchy of Iran.

I’ll vote LibDem in May, because the LibDem-majority council do a good job of running the borough and the councillors are responsive and present. The council leader manages to be at every village fete, flower show, school awards ceremony and sports event going, which impressive considering he has a full time job and being a councillor is unpaid. Our (conservative) MP on the other hand is nowhere to be seen - understandable when he was a minister but as a backbencher you would expect him to have time on his hands.

i don’t agree with all LibDem policies but the ones I disagree with have no bearing at local level anyway.

At a general election I will likely vote LibDem purely as a tactical vote. It’s a straight race between Tory and LibDem here every time.

As someone else pointed out above, you are given responses to points you make earlier on threads and on other threads and you fail to take them on board and keep repeating them.

unemployment has fallen substantially this year, even youth unemployment too.

Unemployment has fallen because people have stopped looking for work. Employment has also fallen, which is going to hit tax revenues. The drop in youth unemployment in particular is because they've given up trying to find work as hospitality vacancies disappear.

This drop in unemployment is bad news, but i pointed that out to you yesterday and you have failed to take it on board.

Will the Lib Dems know what you are though? If you are a woman?