UK General Election 2024

[Mag_seven]

I'm bored with all this and would rather we could just get on with the voting now. Six weeks is far too long for a GE campaign in my view. Four weeks, maybe even three should be the norm.

 

[DarloRich]

I have both an SDP and Reform Candidate in my area,

your seat cant be in the pact then - they have agreed not to stand against each other in certain places. That they are involved with Farage shows they are not the SDP of old. Again: would Shirley Williams or Roy Jenkins enter such a pact?

I'm bored with all this and would rather we could just get on with the voting now. Six weeks is far too long for a GE campaign in my view. Four weeks, maybe even three should be the norm.

there is still time for several more Tory scandals to come to light.

 

[Kaliwax]

your seat cant be in the pact then - they have agreed not to stand against each other in certain places. That they are involved with Farage shows they are not the SDP of old. Again: would Shirley Williams or Roy Jenkins enter such a pact?


there is still time for several more Tory scandals to come to light.

I'm way too young to remember the old SDP. Nevertheless, I changed my voting to the Lib Dems anyway.

 

[PGAT]

It looks like the Greens are against rail now? Why are they like this?

South Cambridgeshire residents speak of East West Rail concerns

There are calls for an inquiry into a planned railway line that will go through south Cambridgeshire.

www.bbc.co.uk

Miranda Fyfe, from the Green Party, said she wanted EWR to be “stopped ASAP”, adding: “I want to see public money put towards other solutions for travel between Bedford, St Neots, Cambourne and Cambridge.”

 

[Howardh]

I'm bored with all this and would rather we could just get on with the voting now. Six weeks is far too long for a GE campaign in my view. Four weeks, maybe even three should be the norm.

Many have already sent in their postal votes so anything from now will fall on deaf ears!

 

[gg1]

It looks like the Greens are against rail now? Why are they like this?

South Cambridgeshire residents speak of East West Rail concerns

There are calls for an inquiry into a planned railway line that will go through south Cambridgeshire.

www.bbc.co.uk

I recall someone mentioning on this forum a month or two ago that in rural areas the Greens often chase the NIMBY vote, this is a perfect example.

 

[bspahh]

Their manifesto does say that treatment would always be free at the point of use - which implies that the voucher would cover the entire cost of treatment.

Where it fails is that Reform are just assuming there will be sufficient private healthcare medics. There won't be. If the Government gives a private voucher to everyone who can't be seen by their GP within 3 days, that means they'll be giving a private GP voucher to - well, probably 90%+ of people who book an NHS GP appointment. The much smaller private sector would be totally overwhelmed, so you'd end up still unable to see anyone for ages. Totally impractical. The kind of policy that sounds a good idea when you dream it up over a pint in the pub but doesn't stand up to any serious scrutiny (Like most of Reform's manifesto, really).

Private healthcare would not be able to replicate the NHS service for the price they would get for a voucher. They could triage queries so fewer queries would end up in front of a GP. For example, an AI chatbot could send you a PDF leaflet, there could be video calls to a nurse practitioner or GP. Video calls mean that they can be centralised, so you can balance the load between different areas. They can also be off-shored to somewhere cheaper.

 

[Sorcerer]

I have seen this seveal times. may I ask why?

For me personally it is mostly just an innate feeling that I get from him whenever I hear him talk and answer questions, sometimes to his own detriment. I think whenever he is asked about supporting Jeremy Corbyn and he answers about how he didn't think they would win the election, when I think it would serve him a lot better to just say "I was a Labour MP so it was my job/duty to advocate for my party". Saying he knew they would lose but advocating for him anyway just makes it look like he either has bad judgement or will just say anything to gain power. His U-turns such as on tuition fees, child benefit caps, taxing top earners, and position on Gaza don't exactly help.

I'm willing to overlook some changes in policy in the name of pragmatism, especially since Corbyn proved that the only votes that matter are the ones in an actual election, but there's no real way to properly determine if Keir is actually being pragmatic or just saying what it takes to gain power. At best I can't be anything more than cautiously optimistic with him since he's still obviously preferable than another five years of Conservatives who have actually proven to be untrustworthy beyond an innate feeling and a few U-turns after a leadership election. Worst case scenario with Keir is a few boring years of nothing, so I'm willing to give him a chance, but I still wouldn't say I trust him.

 

[DarloRich]

@Sorcerer - thank you: that is interesting.

Personally I find Starmer a straight, pragmatic, mature & honest if dull lawyer.

 

[Blindtraveler]

For me he is simply programmed to say the right things to win and get in. But I think him and his top team will be doing the don't panic. Don't panic luntz corporal Jones routine within a couple of weeks of installation

 

[bspahh]

@Sorcerer - thank you: that is interesting.

Personally I find Starmer a straight, pragmatic, mature & honest if dull lawyer.

A German colleague was grumbling about having dull politicians in charge. Dull sounds great to me. The job is prime minister, not a dinner party guest.

 

[DarloRich]

A German colleague was grumbling about having dull politicians in charge. Dull sounds great to me. The job is prime minister, not a dinner party guest.

Exactly! BTW was Merkel a "character"?

 

[nw1]

A day late and a dollar short as always. They had Gillian Keegan out defending them this morning!

Oh dear. Marginal seat, by all accounts, helped by the loss of rural areas to Arundel and South Downs.

For me he is simply programmed to say the right things to win and get in. But I think him and his top team will be doing the don't panic. Don't panic luntz corporal Jones routine within a couple of weeks of installation

I think you're being a bit unfair on Starmer there. We haven't had experience of him as a leader. Who knows, he may be precisely the right person for the job.

The Labour answer to John Major, perhaps. And perhaps there's nothing wrong with that, especially after 5 years of 'characters' such as Johnson, Truss, Braverman and Anderson dominating politics.

I may be wrong but I'm being cautiously optimistic for now, because there is no reason not to be, for the moment at least.

 

[Ediswan]

I'm bored with all this and would rather we could just get on with the voting now. Six weeks is far too long for a GE campaign in my view. Four weeks, maybe even three should be the norm.

If this year is a guide, some of the parties would struggle to produce a manifesto before the vote. We do spend over 2% our days with a general election campaign underway.

 

[birchesgreen]

If this year is a guide, some of the parties would struggle to produce a manifesto before the vote. We do spend over 2% our days with a general election campaign underway.

Because the election was called in a surprise move to everyone (apart from some gamblers). If the election date was fixed then parties would know when they would need their manifestos ready.

 

[Kaliwax]

Exactly! BTW was Merkel a "character"?

Clement Atlee wasn't a character either, he was quite the opposite to a character in my opinion, but he got a lot done during his time as PM.

 

[nw1]

NotE: the SDP of today are NOT the SDP of old. Would Shirley Williams have made an electoral pact with Farage?

In particular, the current SDP appear to be strongly anti-immigration, in contrast to version 1.0. I watched their Party Political Broadcast, out of curiosity. As well as that it came across very patronising towards both Labour and the Lib Dems.

For example, declared openly on their website:

Home - SDP - The Social Democratic Party

The SDP is a patriotic, economically left-leaning and culturally traditional party. General Election Manifesto 2024 Our Manifesto, entitled ‘Homecoming’, sets out the SDP’s vision for Britain including a comprehensive set of policy solutions for housing, trade, industry, health and immigration...

sdp.org.uk

We will withdraw from the 1951 UN refugee convention, the ECHR and all other international instruments which deny UK border sovereignty.

Can't help thinking they need to change their name to something a bit more representative of their strident stance in this area. For those who remember the 80s SDP, continuing to use the name is a bit misleading.

Tories now withdrawn support from the two candidates being investigated in the betting scandal:

BBC election leaders debate live: Sunak and Starmer clash over borders, tax and gender

There were heated exchanges between the Conservative and Labour leaders in one of the last set-piece events of the election campaign.

www.bbc.co.uk

Laura Saunders had no chance in Bristol NW I suspect. The interesting one is Craig Williams. The Tories could have held that seat - but it seems unlikely now.

 

[Gloster]

Tories now withdrawn support from the two candidates being investigated in the betting scandal:

BBC election leaders debate live: Sunak and Starmer clash over borders, tax and gender

There were heated exchanges between the Conservative and Labour leaders in one of the last set-piece events of the election campaign.

www.bbc.co.uk

This has been very badly handled by the Conservatives. They have let it run so that it remains at the top of the news and gives people a bad opinion of them (if there was anyone who didn’t have such an opinion already). Finally they do act, which makes it look as though they are dithering and indecisive, and not masters of their own destiny.

 

[DarloRich]

This has been very badly handled by the Conservatives. They have let it run so that it remains at the top of the news and gives people a bad opinion of them (if there was anyone who didn’t have such an option already). Finally they do act, which makes it look as though they are dithering and indecisive, and not masters of their own destiny.

that is Sunak all over - why not act on day one?

 

[dgl]

I wonder if Starmer initially wanted the vote to happen quickly so he couldn't stuff anything up but now I bet he's just waiting for each new Conservative scandal to come to light, there's shooting yourself in the foot with something like a pistol, and there's the conservatives with a machine gun!

 

[Busaholic]

• Replacing the sanctions regime with an incentive-based scheme to help people into work.
• Make the benefits system work better for disabled people by:
  • Giving disabled people and organisations representing them a stronger voice in the design of benefits policies and processes.
  • Bringing Work Capability Assessments in-house.
  • Reforming Personal Independence Payment assessments to make the process more transparent and stop unnecessary reassessments, and end the use of informal assessments.
  • Establish an Independent Living Taskforce to help people live independently in their own homes, with more choice and control over their lives.
  • Ending inappropriate and costly inpatient placements for people with learning disabilities and autism.
  • We will give people free personal care. Personal care is support to do things like getting washed and dressed
  • Set a target of ending deep poverty within a decade, and establish an independent commission to recommend further annual increases in Universal Credit to ensure that support covers life’s essentials, such as food and bills.

This is what I found from the Lib Dems, I must say, I find all of these extremely fair.

OK, perhaps I'd skipped over those as I'm not of working age and have only been disabled, but significantly so, since reaching pension age, finding there is virtually no additional financial support from the government. I also have to say that, like virtually all the manifesto, it's pie-in-the-sky stuff only 5-10% of which might get enacted if (a) they got elected and (b) the financial situation the Tories have got us in disappeared overnight. It's Tuition Fees on overdrive!

 

[Kaliwax]

OK, perhaps I'd skipped over those as I'm not of working age and have only been disabled, but significantly so, since reaching pension age, finding there is virtually no additional financial support from the government. I also have to say that, like virtually all the manifesto, it's pie-in-the-sky stuff only 5-10% of which might get enacted if (a) they got elected and (b) the financial situation the Tories have got us in disappeared overnight. It's Tuition Fees on overdrive!

I'm also disabled so it's a case of for me voting for the party who is the least evil to be honest.

 

[SteveP29]

The more I think about Sunak, the more I come to the conclusion that:

(i) he's probably technically quite capable
(ii) he's been over promoted rapidly through a combination of luck, circumstances and excess ambition
(iii) he just doesn't get how politics works
(iv) he's out of his depth
(v) he's fundamentally weak

I think you got that list the wrong way round

 

[Yew]

Page 9 of the The Reform Party "Contract" says:



They can remove waiting lists by giving you a voucher for private GP treatment after 3 days. If that voucher doesn't pay for the cost of treatment, then you would need to top up with your own money.

They also have to fund the lost tax from doctors and nurses, training caps, write off of student fees and insurance tax rebates. If they want to pay more money to staff, you don't need to add taxation rules, increase the salaries.

If Jeremy Corbyn had suggested these, there would have been all sorts of shouting about "Magic Monney Trees"...

 

[deltic]

OK, perhaps I'd skipped over those as I'm not of working age and have only been disabled, but significantly so, since reaching pension age, finding there is virtually no additional financial support from the government. I also have to say that, like virtually all the manifesto, it's pie-in-the-sky stuff only 5-10% of which might get enacted if (a) they got elected and (b) the financial situation the Tories have got us in disappeared overnight. It's Tuition Fees on overdrive!

I understand the anger about the Lib Dems and tuition fees but people who raise this issue ignore what Labour and Conservatives have done.

Channel 4 Fact Check on the issue is well worth a read - https://www.channel4.com/news/factc...nts-have-been-misled-and-lied-to-for-20-years

But over two decades – and four prime ministers – students have been lied to, misled and betrayed by politicians and political parties. And even the NUS eventually abandoned its pledge to fight against tuition fees.

It is notable that Nick Clegg is the only one to have apologised over the issue.

 

[bleeder4]

I have both an SDP and Reform Candidate in my area,

So do I, unless we both live in the same constituency. Here in Worcester there is both an SDP candidate and a Reform candidate.

 

[DarloRich]

The more I think about Sunak, the more I come to the conclusion that:

(i) he's probably technically quite capable
(ii) he's been over promoted rapidly through a combination of luck, circumstances and excess ambition
(iii) he just doesn't get how politics works
(iv) he's out of his depth
(v) he's fundamentally weak

the biggest issue for me is his lack of any connection with the real world. He has no idea, really, what life is like for most of the people he rules. His wealth insulates him from the problems in society and his lack of empathy simply makes it worse. The Sky TV comments were a case in point.

Also his PR team are useless. Yesterday he was pictured in a pub with real people with a pint in a dimple pot. A pint of water.

We know he doesn't drink which is fair enough but could they not give him a bottle of zero alcohol lager to hold? its just for the picture. We all know he doesn't ever go in pubs but why make that obvious?

 

[Kaliwax]

So do I, unless we both live in the same constituency. Here in Worcester there is both an SDP candidate and a Reform candidate.

Totally opposite to you. It won't make a difference who runs in mine, she's likely to be the next home secretary anyway, no doubt she will come back in, as she's been here for 27 years

 

[ainsworth74]

Exactly! BTW was Merkel a "character"?

She wasn't a character but I'm also not sure that history will be that kind to her either...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Personally I find Starmer a straight, pragmatic, mature & honest if dull lawyer.

Nothing wrong with dull, at the moment. It is probably what the UK needs right now.