Reasons to be cheerful/not despair?

[teawamutu]

Indulge me, I'm feeling a bit doomy this morning (and very sad to be so, because a few years ago I'd have been doing cartwheels about this result).

We're better off than we were five years ago, right?

We have the Cass Report.

We have Forstater and various other legal decisions, with more pending.

There's a conversation around the harms of medicalising confused children.

Gender ideology is more to the 'controversial' end of the scale than 'right side of history'.

No-one will ever unsee Isla Bryson.

What else? I know there's a long road ahead, but what other foundations do we have to stand on as we prepare to fight ALL OVER AGAIN?

I wonder how quickly they will implement the VAT on private school fees? That's going to fund the additional 6500 teachers for state schools. Only problem being private schools will then be claiming back VAT on their costs. Hmmm. Also a large amount of fee paying parents are busy handing over years and years of future fees to avoid the VAT. I fear this plan is going to leave a big hole in their plan.

But we now have established SEEN networks all over the place, who will be counting that lobbying and indoctrination.

Just shows we’re not really all in it together are we ?
From what I’ve read it’s not a huge amount is it ?

Yes, thank goodness despite the mad author Julie Wassmer's smear campaign and her persuading a whole load of the local Labour members to turn against her and vote Green.

The change of constituency boundaries and the captured students having gone home may have helped her.

VAT is 20%, that's a hefty amount given the size of private school fees.

Far from it unfortunately, but we can hope that Labour will do better at attempting to redistribute the wealth. I just don't think the private school shake up will help. It's in their manifesto though so they must be committed to going through with it.

That's always a reason to be cheerful!

I agree with @Ereshkigalangcleg btw, Labour have to deliver a LOT if they want a second term. Because in a lot of constituencies, the win is shallow and Reform came second in a worrying number. A very good political analyst calls it Labour's 'sandcastle victory'. If KS doesn't deliver, if he betrays us women, his majority will collapse.

which I think you did yesterday about the size of Labours win.

No, I don't think I made any predictions, you must be confusing me with another poster. I was always aware Labour were going to win a lot of seats.

I don't need a crystal ball to have my own opinion. Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one.

We need them to deliver because the alternative is likely Farage and Reform UK.
This catastrophising before they’ve even done anything doesn’t help either. The right wing media will start on them soon enough in any case. They’ll have no honeymoon like Rishi or Johnson did.

Only problem being private schools will then be claiming back VAT on their costs.

The real problem is the existing legal advice by Lord Pannick saying it's not legal. Pannick is reported as someone Starmer admires.

in one breath 'all this catastrophising doesn't help!'

in the very next breath 'a new party in a FPTP system could realistically go from 4 seats to a majority in one electoral cycle!'

😂

The red wall didn’t turn blue for a reduced NHS, minimal state support, reduction of workers rights etc either. Although ironically that’s what Farage stands for. Like Brexit a Farage led Tory party/government won’t be what ordinary protest voters envisaged. Very very different.

I didn’t say the last comment ? 😂

We need them to deliver because the alternative is likely Farage and Reform UK.

I wasn't having a go at you personally, your comment just made me laugh out loud because it seemed to represent the way political debate in Britain has gone since about 2015 - someone accuses the other side of catastrophising and then promptly starts catastrophising 😂

well looking at the voting stats and the relentless doom mongering from the get go, I wouldn’t be surprised.

I suspect a party full of younger people who'd bought hook, line and sinker into woke ideology was more the reason. As Upton Sinclair said 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

Here in Wales we've seen what they can do,it's right shitshow.

OK well if Reform do have a meteoric rise from 4 seats to 300 in one electoral cycle, then there'll need to be a good documentary film made about them and given your user name I reckon you've got the gig

Just make sure you put loads of Wagner on the soundtrack 😂

Yep coming from south wales i strongly concur. It's so, so sad

Yes that too!

I live in the red wall, proper working class brexity left behind town. I don’t think the tories have a cat in hells chance of winning places like these back. They've had their chance. None of their 14 year promises about Levelling up have materialised.
We had 2 out of 3 Tory MPs until yesterday. Now we have 3 labour ones. If Labour don’t deliver they will turn to the likes of Reform.

😂. I’m not a supporter.

And we can still have a laugh at people like David Lammy busy growing a cervix whilst performing his duties as Secretary of State