Are the tories playing how low can you go?

[cambridgeshire canary 6,735]

 

And for those wondering how this would translate into seats..

Labour on 537 seats.

Lib Dems on 48 seats.

Tories on 24 seats.

Edited March 8 by cambridgeshire canary

[Herman 9,779]

I think they accepted your challenge. 

[dylanisabaddog 4,931]

On 08/03/2024 at 11:34, cambridgeshire canary said:

 

And for those wondering how this would translate into seats..

Labour on 537 seats.

Lib Dems on 48 seats.

Tories on 24 seats.

It's worth opening that tweet to see some of the comments from Reform supporters. 

One says that this poll clearly shows that Reform is now the 2nd party. 

Should we make people do a simple maths test before they're allowed to vote? 

Edited March 13 by dylanisabaddog

[Well b back 3,216]

4 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

It's worth opening that tweet to see some of the comments from Reform supporters. 

One says that this poll clearly shows that Reform is now the 2nd party. 

Should we make people do a simple maths test before they're allowed to vote? 

I suspect what will happen will be Reform will threaten to run, Tories will do a deal to accept some of their views ( bit like Brexit ) Reform will support the Tories.

Apparently as it stands Farage won’t run as a Reform candidate as he still harbours ambitions to become the Tory Party leader.

i can’t see Reform wanting almost every seat in Parliament being Labour.

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

7 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

It's worth opening that tweet to see some of the comments from Reform supporters. 

One says that this poll clearly shows that Reform is now the 2nd party. 

Should we make people do a simple maths test before they're allowed to vote? 

I'd always advocate a simple multiple choice to name the capitals of say Australia, USA, China and Germany. Allowed to get 1 wrong.  I bet a lot would!

More seriously, stop postal voting - on-line with identity / security checks if you can't vote in person. If you can't manage that on-line then these days I'm not sure you're really competent to vote in the modern world.

Edited March 13 by Yellow Fever

[dylanisabaddog 4,931]

14 hours ago, Well b back said:

I suspect what will happen will be Reform will threaten to run, Tories will do a deal to accept some of their views ( bit like Brexit ) Reform will support the Tories.

Apparently as it stands Farage won’t run as a Reform candidate as he still harbours ambitions to become the Tory Party leader.

i can’t see Reform wanting almost every seat in Parliament being Labour.

If the long term aim of Farage is to lead the Conservative Party I think he'd need them to crash and burn at the next election. 

But the scenario you envisage is entirely possible because desperate people do desperate things. It would be an extremely short sighted approach and just the fact that's it's possible is perhaps the best argument in favour of Proportional Representation. Quite simply it's the tail wagging the dog. 

Unless something dramatic happens the Conservatives are going to suffer a large defeat this year. If they want to challenge in 5 years time they need to move to the centre not to the right.

A large number on the right of their party just don't get that, which is why we're probably going to have at least 10 years of Labour. The Tories were never really worried by Corbyn because they know the UK will never elect a left wing government. What they're missing is that we won't elect a far right one either.

Farage has stood in 7 elections and by-elections and has lost every time. Some people never learn. 

[Daz Sparks 1,154]

5 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Farage has stood in 7 elections and by-elections and has lost every time.

So his chosen vocation is politics, and whenever he has been assessed for how good he is at it, he falls short.

Seems wrong to me how much influence an unelected, failed politician has had on this country.

[dylanisabaddog 4,931]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-68551974

@cambridgeshire canarydoes this answer your question? 

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

7 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-68551974

@cambridgeshire canarydoes this answer your question? 

Probably by Gove's new definition of  'extremism' The Government will have to stop talking to all the Conservatives if they are funded by such unapologetic extremists calling for MPs to be shot  ..... 

Edited March 14 by Yellow Fever

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

Still dead in the water.

 

[A Load of Squit 5,170]

3 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Still dead in the water.

 

They need a boat.

[TheRock 171]

8 hours ago, Daz Sparks said:

Seems wrong to me how much influence an unelected, failed politician has had on this country.

Agreed, he seemed to get run over in FPTP every time. I think he won't run again unless he is given a safe Tory seat (no longer such thing!), or a Tory nomination at a by-election in a Tory constituency where Reform would stand aside for him, which the Tories would never let happen.

 

Credit to him that despite never being an MP, he has effectively had a stranglehold on aspects of British politics. He forced the 2016 EU Ref after 19 years of campaigning, got Cameron sacked, and gave Boris Johnson a golden ticket to a huge majoirty at the expense of Corbyn and Swinson by pulling his candidates at the 2019GE. He has also had a huge hand in Rishi's ongoing downfall by exposing the English Channel migration debacle, and now has a faction of sycophants within the Tories headed up by Liz Truss.

Farage knows his place now, and that's to be his own mouthpiece from the sidelines on trash like GB news, and to sabotage the Tories by holding them to ransom until they have to listen to him.

Edited March 14 by TheRock

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

If labour get a majority that big then they may as well just shut the commons for 4 years to save electricity.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

On 14/03/2024 at 06:08, dylanisabaddog said:

If the long term aim of Farage is to lead the Conservative Party I think he'd need them to crash and burn at the next election. 

But the scenario you envisage is entirely possible because desperate people do desperate things. It would be an extremely short sighted approach and just the fact that's it's possible is perhaps the best argument in favour of Proportional Representation. Quite simply it's the tail wagging the dog. 

Unless something dramatic happens the Conservatives are going to suffer a large defeat this year. If they want to challenge in 5 years time they need to move to the centre not to the right.

A large number on the right of their party just don't get that, which is why we're probably going to have at least 10 years of Labour. The Tories were never really worried by Corbyn because they know the UK will never elect a left wing government. What they're missing is that we won't elect a far right one either.

Farage has stood in 7 elections and by-elections and has lost every time. Some people never learn. 

That may have been true in the past but I don't think it is so certain today. In many european countries, far right governments have taken control, and in the US, the Republicans are likely to win the Presidency. The UK seems to be an outlier because it is moving to the left and Labour but my opinion is that Britain thought it was moving to the right in 2019, when Johnson was elected on a landslide to get Brexit done, and we thought we were going to get a right-leaning government. Instead Johnson turned out to be a another Liberal with a centrist agenda.

The Tory party members are way to the right of the majority of Tory MPs and in the upcoming election the Tories will struggle even to find the army of volunteers needed to do all the leafletting and local doorstepping that is part of an election campaign.

I disagree with you that the Tories need to move to the centre in order to win an election. The groundswell of opinion is centred around right-wing issues - immigration, the economy, replacing the failing NHS model, removing wokery from the institutions. The Tories will get a thrashing for failing to deal with these issues. Labour won't deal with these issues either, so it leaves a vacuum on the right that someone will fill sometime over the next five years. and I think it will come from a very unexpected source.

[dylanisabaddog 4,931]

3 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

That may have been true in the past but I don't think it is so certain today. In many european countries, far right governments have taken control, and in the US, the Republicans are likely to win the Presidency. The UK seems to be an outlier because it is moving to the left and Labour but my opinion is that Britain thought it was moving to the right in 2019, when Johnson was elected on a landslide to get Brexit done, and we thought we were going to get a right-leaning government. Instead Johnson turned out to be a another Liberal with a centrist agenda.

The Tory party members are way to the right of the majority of Tory MPs and in the upcoming election the Tories will struggle even to find the army of volunteers needed to do all the leafletting and local doorstepping that is part of an election campaign.

I disagree with you that the Tories need to move to the centre in order to win an election. The groundswell of opinion is centred around right-wing issues - immigration, the economy, replacing the failing NHS model, removing wokery from the institutions. The Tories will get a thrashing for failing to deal with these issues. Labour won't deal with these issues either, so it leaves a vacuum on the right that someone will fill sometime over the next five years. and I think it will come from a very unexpected source.

In which European country has a far right Government taken control? The last European election was in Poland where the left replaced a right wing Government. 

I'm afraid that you are suffering from an illusion if you think this country will eventually move to the right. Support for the Conservative Party among the under 40's currently stands at 14%. The vast bulk of Conservative support is in the baby boom generation (born between 1945 and 1965). Those people are starting to die. In 10 years time 75% of them will be dead. Most frightening of all for the Tories is that the average age of their membership of 250,000 is now 75. Around 90% of them will be dead in 10 years time. 

Meanwhile, thanks to the Blair government, over 50% of young people now attend University. If you go to University you are 90% certain to vote Labour. That's why Blair pushed University education and it's why Cameron tried to put a stop to it. 

So quite simply, it will be impossible for a right wing party to win a UK election in 10 years time. 

You might think that the current policy announcements on cutting the Civil Service, stopping the boats and cutting sick pay are aimed at gaining votes from Labour. The reality is that current polling has the Conservatives on 90 seats, the Lib Dems on 50 and Reform on zero. The current policy statements are aimed purely at stopping more Tory voters moving to Reform. If that happens the Conservatives are in real danger of coming 3rd. They're not fighting to win an election, they're fighting for their existence. 

You are right that they will be replaced on the right of the political spectrum but they will be replaced by a party that is currently polling on zero seats.

It is worth repeating that Farage has stood for election 7 times and lost 7 times. That sums up the level of support for the far right. 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

Netherlands, Italy, Argentina and soon to be US.  ADF polling high in Germany, the Right in France to name a few off the top of my head

You are making the mistake of calling the Tories, the Right. They are bang a centrist party of one nation Liberals. The right wing have been driven out or are standing down at the next election, so it's little wonder that there are few left to  vote for them and why Labour are looking at a massive landslide. 

I agree with your projections on the likely voting patterns of the under 40s. The education system has brainwashed a whole generation of what I would call lost people who are unsure of their identities, their gender, whether there will be jobs and housing for them, all problems that the Tories could not fix. And Labour will find themselves unable to fix these issues as they are even more ideology-linked to the causes than the Conservatives were. So a generation will follow that will reject the left just as the centre is being rejected at this time. 

Since Labour will be in power for five years, the current crop of political leaders will be gone by the election after the next one, so people like Farage will have left the stage and the Reform party, without MPs will run out of steam. So the right will rebound but I suspect with leaders that we don't yet know about. I think it will likely come from a YouTube political commentator as people p le like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson have fan bases much larger than any mainstream politician and I think we will see similar rise on this side of the pond. 

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

 

[DraytonBoy 152]

The current poll numbers illustrate that FPTP is not such a bad system after all, imagine the outcome under PR with Reform UK having several seats.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

14 hours ago, DraytonBoy said:

The current poll numbers illustrate that FPTP is not such a bad system after all, imagine the outcome under PR with Reform UK having several seats.

13% of MPs in parliament for reform, representative of how many actually voted for them ensuring the positions they support featured in parliamentary debate? Labour wouldn't have an overall majority instead of nearly all seats in parliament, reflecting that they didn't secure a majority of the vote, so would have to consult with other parties to pass legislation?

With the conservatives on 20%, government would be labour led without them doing anything they like for five years; they'd have to work with the Lib Dems or the Greens, who would be constructive while the cross-party nature of government will give proper transparency and accountability for the public. I don't see a problem.

Edited Friday at 06:31 by littleyellowbirdie

[DraytonBoy 152]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I don't see a problem.

It was a flippant post really as PR would lead to more coalition governments which would be a good thing IMO, the thought of Richard Tice spouting off in parliament leaves me cold though.

[BroadstairsR 2,174]

17 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Netherlands, Italy, Argentina and soon to be US.  ADF polling high in Germany, the Right in France to name a few off the top of my head

You are making the mistake of calling the Tories, the Right. They are bang a centrist party of one nation Liberals. The right wing have been driven out or are standing down at the next election, so it's little wonder that there are few left to  vote for them and why Labour are looking at a massive landslide. 

I agree with your projections on the likely voting patterns of the under 40s. The education system has brainwashed a whole generation of what I would call lost people who are unsure of their identities, their gender, whether there will be jobs and housing for them, all problems that the Tories could not fix. And Labour will find themselves unable to fix these issues as they are even more ideology-linked to the causes than the Conservatives were. So a generation will follow that will reject the left just as the centre is being rejected at this time. 

Since Labour will be in power for five years, the current crop of political leaders will be gone by the election after the next one, so people like Farage will have left the stage and the Reform party, without MPs will run out of steam. So the right will rebound but I suspect with leaders that we don't yet know about. I think it will likely come from a YouTube political commentator as people p le like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson have fan bases much larger than any mainstream politician and I think we will see similar rise on this side of the pond. 

A lot of good insight there. I wouldn't know if I agree with it all, but it's far more credible and debate worthy than posting carefully selected Twitter stuff.

[Herman 9,779]

Chris Philp. 😬😬😬