Nobody ever criticises the UK/US electorate

[Sheeled]

Yes both UK & US electoral systems are dreadful and rarely fully representative of peoples views. But. Its all very well commentators constantly bemoaning useless or misguided politicians who entrench inequality and trash the planet.
But 77.3 million people left their homes and voted for this man, knowing very well from 2016-20 what he was. Margaret Thatcher sold off public housing, generating the housing crisis, was belligerent and xenophobic, trashed the old industrial cities. Millions in Britain worshipped her and voted for her and her spiritual successors including Blair, Cameron etc time and again. 52% of EU Referendum voters in 2016 went out and voted to leave the world's most successful free trade block. Nigel Farage says the most appalling things about other humans and is set to become Prime Minister. Millions and millions of voters are responsible for what has been done to both countries.

I'm not a fan of Reform or Farage, and haven't decided who I will vote for even at next week's local elections.

Who are you going to vote for and who do you want everyone else to vote for?

You clearly haven’t been here long if you’ve never seen posts saying people who voted for Brexit are X or people who vote for Reform are Y.
Plenty of posts on how can people vote for Tories, Corbyn, Green Party, Trump…and what their vote says about their IQ.

@Sheeled
Do an advanced search.
Type in the words "stupid electorate".

You will be inundated with thread after thread and thousands of posts criticising the electorate. You could fill a book with posts that say things like "At least now Trump's been elected again we have proof that there is an electorate more stupid than ours".

What's the difference between that imagined future and the present that we have whereby we have a significant portion of people who viscerally despise our current PM and his policies? Our FPTP system means that we sometimes/frequently get leaders and parties that are unrepresentative of many of us. You obviously despise what Reform and its ilk stands for. How did you feel (if you were an adult) during the years when Blair ran the country? Did you feel that he and New Labour fairly "represented all British people"? I didn't (and I even voted for him to get in the first term!). Apart from everyone who thinks like you leaving the UK, what do you think is a "solution"?

So how it is with Labour now

Perhaps you need broader news sources.

I think that the electorate still carry some responsibility. It appears that no fact checking takes place anymore, and that anything people read on social media is just believed as being factual. Don't get me wrong, the politicians are not helping this either (looking at you Boris with your bus slogans), and there is also an increase in foreign disruptors making posts to further muddy the waters.

It used to be that a government was elected to make decisions on behalf of the people, who were not necessarily in touch with all the detail required, however now it seems that many politicians are only interested in serving themselves.

Interestingly, and while Labour are not covering themselves in glory at the moment, I do believe that Starmer cares about the country to a much greater degree than many of the more recent PMs.

He cares about staying in power hence the whip yesterday. Ik mn is still more Starmer / Labour I doubt the local elections will back this up.

Plus he uses more lines, sound bites and doesn’t answer anything really. Probably why he had to avoid the privileges committee.

I think both things can be true at the same time though, although I agree that he appears to care about staying in power more than he should. Or maybe he wants to bear the burden of his errors? I suspect not, as I agree with you that he is not performing well at PMQs. It is fortunate that his adversary is not especially competent. Politicians of old would have led to a very different experience. Then again, I remember the days when politicians used to actually answer questions.

I don't think the local elections will prove anything though. It isn't unusual for a government to get a pasting in local elections, there is much history of this. Some will see it as a sign, but it isn't always.

It goes back to the question of 'if not Starmer, who else?', and 'if not Labour, who else?'. Politics is dire at the moment, it really is a question of choosing the least worst. There is no best.

His adversary makes enough mince meat of him to ensure he’s the least liked leader on net favourability. She is more competent than most in that house but faces barriers due to being a woman etc especially on here where people deride.

The local elections do matter as they did to Labour when they used it to show how out of touch the others were, the same will apply to them. They also tend to make worse decisions to try and claw back voters.

Obviously the demise is very early in the term so either suffer with Starmer until the end or see if someone else can get voters back before the GE.

KB being more competent than most in the house isn't a very high bar though unfortunately.

I think suffering Starmer or seeing if someone else can get voters back are a bit like choosing between syphilis and gonorrhea really. Much the same as choosing between Labour and any other party.

I think she does well especially since so many go for her, perhaps she’s doing well to get that response.

I agree more with the last paragraph.

"She is more competent than most in that house but faces barriers due to being a woman etc especially on here where people deride"
Even if she were more competent than most in the house, which is highly doubtful, she is the leader of the opposition and us supposed to be among the very best of the opposition benches,.not just "in the top 50%" of all MPs, the majority of whom are.not in government nor the shadow government.

The last bit about facing barriers and people deriding just sounded like trying to get an excuse in in advance.

The most effective people at holding what is an historically poor (albeit not quite as disastrous as the preceding 3 administrations) government to account are imo the SNP, some Labour and some Tory backbenchers and an occasional Green.

If the only things Starmer had got wrong were the Gaza response, Mandelson & the island of strangers nonsense, they alone are so serious he should not stay in power.

The SNP has been in power in Scotland - voted in by the electorate you think should be criticised for its decision making stupidity - for the last 19 years.

Well, then, don't read on social media.

I read mostly the New York Times and The New Yorker, which are meticulous about fact-checking.

Well that is your opinion OP, if millions of people have a different opinion to you then.....

I am just amazed at how stupid and easily led people are... I am particularly political and I live in a devolved nation and almost noone here even knows what that entails... Complaining to MPs about devolved budgets and vice versa, it's embarrassing to be honest.. And Reform, don't even get me started, talking locally about National issues over which our Government here has no control... Absolute madness and they'll vote for it too, irrespective of the damage done to themselves just because it hurts others or even pisses them off... Utterly weird and very worrying.

People are being brainwashed by social media. There is such a huge amount of propaganda being churned out by political actors with their own motivations. Christopher Harborne is bank rolling Farage because he wants to reduce legislation on bitcoin and avoid paying any taxes globally. Anger works best for engagement, so that’s what is pushed. If you find yourself getting more and more angry with the things you are reading on social media, THAT’S the whole point. If you think you’re immune to being affected by the messages you see, you don’t understand how they work.
Yes, the general public is malleable, easily led, easily deceived, easily manipulated. Social media is designed to be brilliant at doing exactly those things. It works on our dopamine release mechanisms. It affects our brains in ways we cannot directly control. Teaching people to consciously seek alternative news sources is helpful, but insufficient against the sheer momentum of social media.

We’re fucked, to be honest.

This is bizarre. The US electorate get blamed all the time. What are you looking at….Guinea Pig World?

I don't (other than for the hilarity of misinformation, which would be really funny if it were not so serious).

I use the same sources, plus Reuters and a few others.

Well, although it shames me to say it, the US electorate is responsible for a great many ills in the world at the moment.

Yes, Reuters is definitely good. But the NYT and TNY are more entertaining.

:D

I don't really trust anything anymore, just cross reference everything from a many sources as possible. It's a crazy world these days.

But they're never forced to take responsibility. If you voted for Thatcher, the tories in 2010, Brexit, Boris in 2019 and are now going to vote for Reform today you are the problem. You're the reason we're in this mess, and are only exacerbating the situation. It's exasperating, and I'm so fed up with it.

I'm not a fan of any of those parties, but statistically it is borne out that those who are more intelligent and have higher levels of education vote for parties on the centre/centre left.