UK General Election 2024

[Falcon1200]

Do you think a white person who committed a race bombing to kill black and brown people should be held in a whites-only jail? We don't do that at the moment.

As you well know that is not a parallel in any shape or form.

 

[AlterEgo]

As you well know that is not a parallel in any shape or form.

Why is it not? Is not the risk of severe harm the same, or even greater? Don't black and brown men have the right to safety in jail, too, from racist murderers? As much as women have the right to feel safe from assault in jail? Does one feel more socially acceptable as a risk, and if so, why is this?

On what grounds are you proposing it is okay ban some women from women's jails? What test will you administer to decide?

 

[renegademaster]

Do you think a white person who committed a race bombing to kill black and brown people should be held in a whites-only jail? We don't do that at the moment.

He'd probably end up being put in segregation for substantial part of his sentence like other terror suspects have been. And I'd imagine the guards would keep extra watch over him if put in general population

Why is it not? Is not the risk of severe harm the same, or even greater? Don't black and brown men have the right to safety in jail, too, from racist murderers? As much as women have the right to feel safe from assault in jail? Does one feel more socially acceptable as a risk, and if so, why is this?

On what grounds are you proposing it is okay ban some women from women's jails? What test will you administer to decide?

The white inmate wouldn't have any inherent physical advantage over almost all of the other inmates that MtF prisoner would have in a Women's prison

 

[nw1]

Oh, let’s hope for some bigger scalps than that.

Not sure if we'll get many. Hunt perhaps.

All the most obnoxious Tories are in safe seats, sadly.

 

[AlterEgo]

Not sure if we'll get many. Hunt perhaps.

All the most obnoxious Tories are in safe seats, sadly.

Or have stood down. Wisely.

 

[Bayum]

Well. Sunak's responses to Beth Rigsby this evening were abysmal.

Beth Rigby tears into Sunak and asks brutal question - 'worse than Truss'

Rishi Sunak was told his Government is as unpopular as Liz Truss's in a brutal exchange with Sky News' Beth Rigby as she highlighted turmoil under the Tories

www.mirror.co.uk

Ms Rigby asked: "Your polling is now worse than in the Liz Truss Government. What's going wrong?" Struggling Mr Sunak conceded: "It hasn't been an easy 18 months, I'm doing my best to keep going." Ms Rigby then confronted him over the Tory chaos the country has endured since the 2019 election.

She asked him: "We've had three Prime Ministers, five Chancellors, five Home Secretaries, six Health Secretaries. How do we know that if you won the General Election, you'd still be Prime Minister in a year's time?"

Mr Sunak - who has struggled to hold his warring party together in recent months - responded: "Look I can appreciate people's frustrations. Of course, we haven't got everything right. I don't think any Government does. And I know it's been very difficult for many people, but what I can do is work as hard as I can to deliver the stability that I said I would."

 

[Busaholic]

Not sure if we'll get many. Hunt perhaps.

All the most obnoxious Tories are in safe seats, sadly.

Maybe, maybe not. Portillo, and others forgotten now, weren't prepared for the shock of finding their seats were unsafe. There's a case for saying that tactical voting took its first steps in 1997 in England.

 

[brad465]

Next scandal/gaffe in the campaign:

Craig Williams: Sunak aide admits placing bet on general election

Craig Williams reportedly placed a bet on the date of the election three days before it was called.

www.bbc.com

A senior aide to Rishi Sunak has admitted that the Gambling Commission are making inquiries after he reportedly placed a bet on the date of the general election.
Tory candidate Craig Williams, who was the prime minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary in the last Parliament, said he would cooperate with the probe.
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, he said: "I've been contacted by a journalist about Gambling Commission inquiries into one of my accounts and thought it best to be totally transparent.
"I put a flutter on the general election some weeks ago. This has resulted in some routine inquiries and I confirm I will fully cooperate with these.
"I don't want to be a distraction from the campaign, I should have thought through how it looked."
According to the Guardian, Mr Williams - who is standing for election in Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr - placed a £100 bet on a July election just three days before Mr Sunak named 4 July as the date.
The newspaper reported that the bet could have led to a payout of £500, following the election in July.
The BBC has not yet been able to verify that he placed a bet on the election date but has contacted Mr Williams for a comment.
Labour called the allegations "utterly extraordinary".
Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper said the prime minister should suspend Mr Williams immediately as a candidate and Conservative member while inquiries take place.
"Voters are being taken for granted by Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives", she added.
A spokesperson for the Conservative Party said they are "aware of contact between a Conservative candidate and the Gambling Commission" but say that it is a "a personal matter for the individual in question".
"As the Gambling Commission is an independent body, it wouldn’t be proper to comment further, until any process is concluded,” they said.
A Gambling Commission spokesperson said it does not "confirm or deny whether any investigations are underway unless or until they are concluded, or if arrests are made or charges are brought during a criminal investigation."
The spokesperson also said that the confidential use of information in order to gain an unfair advantage when betting "may constitute an offence of cheating under Section 42 of the Gambling Act, which is a criminal offence".
Labour's Jonathan Ashworth said: “These allegations are utterly extraordinary."
He claimed Rishi Sunak had "sat on this information for more than a week but has lacked any backbone to take action".
Mr Ashworth added: "Once again Rishi Sunak has been exposed as utterly weak."

I wouldn't be surprised if someone in Sunak's circle has also bet to throw the election for the Tories, as it would explain their dire campaign so far.

 

[bspahh]

Next scandal/gaffe in the campaign:

Craig Williams: Sunak aide admits placing bet on general election

Craig Williams reportedly placed a bet on the date of the election three days before it was called.

www.bbc.com

I wouldn't be surprised if someone in Sunak's circle has also bet to throw the election for the Tories, as it would explain their dire campaign so far.

Craig Williams, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rishi Sunak, and Conservative candidate for Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr posted on twitter

"I've been contacted by a journalist about Gambling Commission inquiries into one of my accounts and thought it best to be totally transparent.
I put a flutter on the General Election some weeks ago. This has has resulted in some routine inquiries and I confirm I will fully cooperate with these
"I don't want it to be a distraction from the campaign. I should have thought through how it looks."

The bet was for £100 3 days before the election was announced.

When I worked for a public listed company, using inside information for something like that would have been gross misconduct and dismissal.

Calling it a "flutter" does not show contrition.

 

[AlterEgo]

They really are utterly thick as mince, truly contemptuous as well. Only a few more weeks and they will nearly all be gone. They should be drummed out of their offices. A disgrace.

 

[JonathanH]

The coalition was a mistake, though I put this down mostly to the blind ambition and lack of principles of Clegg, one of the worst Lib Dem leaders I can remember.

It wasn't really. The electorate simply didn't understand the concept. The Liberal Democrats got to implement some of their policies, but their voters simply couldn't understand why they didn't get to enact all of their policies and had to go against some of them. They failed in their messaging, not the actual decision to go into coalition.

The fact that Liberal Democrat voters turned away from them in the 2015 election is simply ridiculous, and almost as mad as people on the left not turning out to vote for the Labour Party because it has Starmer as its leader (although actually I wonder whether the Green Party is actually a better home for people on the left now). It is far better to influence from within, than from the outside.

So the "Shapps moment" could be this year's Portillo moment, I guess.

I suspect there are going to be too many of those for there to be one moment. Shapps doesn't seem like the biggest scalp out for the taking. I remember one of the graphics from the 1997 valuation night where the BBC lined up various prominent Conservative candidates showing them going into quicksand in depending order. I wonder who they will line up this time.

 

[DoubleLemon]

Doing the rounds on socal media. People have been digging through old photos.

 

[HSTEd]

It's chicken and egg. Trains and buses are often infrequent or non-existent because the over the years the hidden subsidies given to motorists have caused people to drive (why wouldn't you when you get the benefits of driving and the taxpayer/everyone else picks up most of the costs), which means not enough people use the buses and trains to make them viable - hence Beeching etc.

Given that fuel duty more than covers the cost of operating the roads, what hidden subsidies are there?

Fuel duty and the VAT on fuel duty raise something like £35bn per year.
The cost of road construction and maintenance is difficult to pin down but is something like half that.

EDIT:
Add vehicle excise duty and it is more like £44bn. The roads cost something like £12-15bn although its hard to be sure.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

On what grounds are you proposing it is okay ban some women from women's jails? What test will you administer to decide?

I don't think anyone is proposing to ban women from womens' jails. Rather, some of us believe that men should not be placed in womens' jails, irrespective of whether those men have chosen to pretend that they are women.

Given that fuel duty more than covers the cost of operating the roads, what hidden subsideis are there?

It's not just the cost of operating the roads. It's the damage to other peoples' lives caused by making streets less safe and noisier, the slowing down of other people's journeys through congestion, the contribution to global warming and general environmental damage, the harm done to people's health through localised pollution and that driving discourages people from exercising, the increased flooding risk because so much land gets concreted over to provide for parked cars, etc. etc. From the estimates I've seen, fuel duty goes nowhere near paying for all those harms.

 

[HSTEd]

It's not just the cost of operating the roads. It's the damage to other peoples' lives caused by making streets less safe and noisier, the slowing down of other people's journeys through congestion, the contribution to global warming and general environmental damage, the harm done to people's health through localised pollution and that driving discourages people from exercising, the increased flooding risk because so much land gets concreted over to provide for parked cars, etc. etc. From the estimates I've seen, fuel duty goes nowhere near paying for all those harms.

Externalities estimates like that are notoriously fraught and depend on value judgements that are not at all simple to make.

It doesn't help that these estimates are almost always done by people with a pretty clear agenda.
(I do this sort of analysis for a living, but ultimately I am not sure I really trust any of them beyond the broadest strokes).

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't think anyone is proposing to ban women from womens' jails. Rather, some of us believe that men should not be placed in womens' jails, irrespective of whether those men have chosen to pretend that they are women.

Transgender women who have a GRC for example, are legally women whether or not you personally believe otherwise. What you think about whether they are men or not is not relevant.

Refusing to acknowledge this legal fact is no better than refusing to acknowledge naturalised British people for what they are - fully British citizens - because they were born overseas.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Corbyn has published his, well let's call it alternative to Labour, manifesto. No mention of HS2. But, unsurprisingly, renationalising bus and rail is in here.

NEW: Jeremy Corbyn’s “alternative” manifesto:

Cost of living

- Energy, water, rail and mail companies publicly owned
- ⁠£15 minimum wage
- ⁠End to zero-hour contracts
- ⁠Fairer policy of shared parental leave
- ⁠Abolish two- child benefits cap
- ⁠Introduce a system of Universal Basic Income
- ⁠Taxing the wealthy

Housing

- Ban no- fault evictions
- ⁠Fight for rent controls to protect tenants against harassment, deposit deduction and eviction
- ⁠Push for increased funding for projects for LGBT+ homeless people
- ⁠Campaign for a mass-council-housing programme
- ⁠Local authorities given power to increase levels of public health inspection
- ⁠Tougher legislation that cracks down on housing associations and rogue landlords who evade accountability
- ⁠Social homes to be fully insulated
- ⁠A serious process of leasehold reform that gives people more power over their lives and homes
- ⁠Cladding to be removed

Healthcare

- A fully public NHS
- ⁠Supporting doctors and nurses
- ⁠New standards of mental health enshrined into NHS constitution
- ⁠Invest more in eating disorder services
- ⁠Schools recruit qualified councillors
- ⁠A National Care Service
- ⁠NHS to empower reproductive healthcare and close racial disparities

Environment

- A Green New Deal that opposes new licenses for oil and gas extraction, investing in publicly- owned renewal energy, and building fully insulated social housing
- ⁠Green spaces to be preserved for public use
- ⁠Buses and railways brought into public ownership
- ⁠Free transport for under-25s
- ⁠Make roads more cycle and walking-friendly
- ⁠A scientific hearing into animal experimentation
- ⁠Banning trophy hunting, live animal exports and animal testing
- ⁠Tougher sentences on those found guilty of animal cruelty
- ⁠Banning the sales of snares and glue traps, ending the badger cull and banning the keeping of primates as pets

Education

- Equalise school rolls
- ⁠Proper funding to repair the school system
- ⁠Increase teacher pay
- ⁠Replacing OFSTED with a new, more sensitive body
- ⁠Proper funding for the arts in schools
- ⁠Close tax loopholes in private schools
- ⁠Support striking university staff
- ⁠Abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants
- ⁠A free National Education Service for all ages
- ⁠Free, universal childcare for 2-4 year olds
- ⁠Update the curriculum to include Black history, the Holocaust and climate change

Social

- Restoring funding to youth and other services to fight knife crime
- ⁠Banning all conversion therapies
- ⁠Making misogyny a hate crime
- ⁠Tackling all forms of hate crime and extremism
- ⁠Prioritising domestic abuse as a health issue
- ⁠Introducing paid leave for domestic abuse survivors
- ⁠Funding women’s refuge and rape crisis centres
- ⁠Investing in rehabilitation
- ⁠Implementing a public health approach to drug use
- ⁠Reversing cuts to legal aid
- ⁠Implementing the recommendations from the Casey review to rectify racial disparities in the legal system

Foreign affairs

- Full implementation of the ICJ ruling on Gaza under the Genocide Convention
- ⁠Justice for war crimes committed by all parties in the conflict
- ⁠Ending arms sales to Israel
- ⁠Speaking out against wars in Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine, West Papau, the Congo, Western Sahara and beyond
- ⁠Allowing the people of the Chagos Islands to return
- ⁠Nuclear disarmament
- ⁠Payment of colonial reparations for historic injustices
- ⁠Promoting fairer international tax rules to ensure workers in the Global South are paid fairer, including supporting trade unions and binding social safeguarding guarantees
- ⁠Protecting the rights of refugees and establishing safe routes for asylum seekers
- ⁠Ending the hostile environment which led to the deportation of British citizens
- ⁠Scrapping the minimum income requirement for spousal visas
- ⁠Campaign for full voting rights for EU nationals
- ⁠Defending free movement

Democracy

- Repealing the Public Order Act
- ⁠Repealing the anti-BDS act
- ⁠Speaking out against anti-union and anti- strike legislation
- ⁠Supporting devolution by regional investment banks and control over regional industrial strategy
- ⁠Abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected chamber
- ⁠Respecting the Good Friday agreement
- ⁠Greater fan involvement and ownership in football

x.com

x.com

Surprised there was nothing about lowering the voting age to 16.

 

[Cross City]

I haven't read it (I tend to keep away from the "fiction" section prior to a GE). Did they also perchance mention that such a move would also mean the restoration of freedom of movement?

I look forward to them becoming the opposition and the Tories being kicked into the long grass for a decade and a half.

Hopefully LDs being in opposition shows the soon-to-be govt that there is plenty of appetite to rejoin the single market and have freedom of movement as it's plainly obvious to everybody what a colossal mistake Brexit was.

 

[NeilCr]

Doing the rounds on socal media. People have been digging through old photos.

Afaik the Sunaks didn’t live over the pharmacy

 

[renegademaster]

Transgender women who have a GRC for example, are legally women whether or not you personally believe otherwise. W

Whether you like it or not, legallg they do not have to be held in Women's prison

 

[OuterDistant]

Doing the rounds on socal media. People have been digging through old photos.

The NHS logo on the property next door didn't come into use until 1999, which is surely well after the time period in question.

 

[birchesgreen]

The NHS logo on the property next door didn't come into use until 1999, which is surely well after the time period in question.

Well maybe they finally got Sky after Rishi finished school, Dad could finally watch the WWE.

 

[Snow1964]

Latest poll tracker shows Labour about 42% (down from about 45% at start of Campaign)

Conservatives at about 22% so gap still around 20-21%, but of course if this continues for next 3 weeks (which is an unknown), could be lots of smaller parties in opposition.

I have seen lot of talk in last couple of day about tactical voting, and avoiding Labour getting big majority (or super-majority as Grant Shapps seems to have named it).

Staring to get interesting, with Sunak now at G7 in Italy (probably his last) and small parties pushing view that Labour policies are same as Conservatives, and now the pushing of a large Labour majority could be bad. Seems to me going to big focus on tactical voting in next three weeks to reign in Labour.

 

[WesternLancer]

Latest poll tracker shows Labour about 42% (down from about 45% at start of Campaign)

Conservatives at about 22% so gap still around 20-21%, but of course if this continues for next 3 weeks (which is an unknown), could be lots of smaller parties in opposition.

I have seen lot of talk in last couple of day about tactical voting, and avoiding Labour getting big majority (or super-majority as Grant Shapps seems to have named it).

Staring to get interesting, with Sunak now at G7 in Italy (probably his last) and small parties pushing view that Labour policies are same as Conservatives, and now the pushing of a large Labour majority could be bad. Seems to me going to big focus on tactical voting in next three weeks to reign in Labour.

So that was yesterday’s Tory spin line. Which of course the small parties were keen to join in on.

Does not mean it will happen just because they said it!

Sounds like perhaps they convinced you?

Labour will no way get this massive majority the polls imply due to things like fptp and tendency of so m any voters for whom the election is not of great interest to just vote as they always do. Tactical voters will imho be significantly outweighed by people who just stay at home. That creates a different outcome.

The Tories know the progressive vote is split across labour Lib Dem green snp etc. it’s massively in their interest to promote this split under fptp so that’s what they are doing.

 

[dosxuk]

Doing the rounds on socal media. People have been digging through old photos.

That's a sky digital mini-dish, not available until October 1998 at the earliest - when Sunak was 18.

 

[DoubleLemon]

I don't think anyone is proposing to ban women from womens' jails. Rather, some of us believe that men should not be placed in womens' jails, irrespective of whether those men have chosen to pretend that they are women.

This attitude are part of the reason a large number of trans people get attacked and many commit suicide. Its disgusting. Do you also think gay men are pretending and its just a phase? Do you think disabled people are putting it on ?You have no idea what anyone else's life is like.

 

[nw1]

Doing the rounds on socal media. People have been digging through old photos.

What's the significance of the dish?

 

[edwin_m]

What's the significance of the dish?

Presuming people are claiming the young Rishi had Sky TV, despite claiming not to. But several people have posted reasons here why the photo must actually have been taken after he left home, if indeed he lived there at all.

 

[jfollows]

What's the significance of the dish?

Rishi's deprived childhood in which he said he had to do without Sky TV ........

 

[nw1]

Presuming people are claiming the young Rishi had Sky TV, despite claiming not to. But several people have posted reasons here why the photo must actually have been taken after he left home, if indeed he lived there at all.

I would doubt he lived there, it looks like a small flat above the pharmacy. I suspect they lived in considerably more up-market accommodation.

Rishi's deprived childhood in which he said he had to do without Sky TV ........

Ah ok, yes I think I vaguely heard of that but didn't really pick up on it.

Corbyn has published his, well let's call it alternative to Labour, manifesto. No mention of HS2. But, unsurprisingly, renationalising bus and rail is in here.

x.com

x.com

Surprised there was nothing about lowering the voting age to 16.

I have to say, I am not averse to Corbyn's manifesto. A blend of the Lib Dems and Corbyn would probably be my optimal one...