Has Covid changed your political allegience?

[John Luxton]

The fundamental problems with populism, in my opinion, are twofold. First, it treats everyone as if they have an equally well-informed opinion on everything - which they don't - and so the opinions of the actual experts are devalued and decisions are liable to be made without properly taking things into account. Secondly, it is a great way for a government to become excessively focused on short-term measures - "crowd pleasers" if you will - to win the next election, rather than doing what is best long term.

Have we just had too many EXPERTS opinions taken notice of in the past 21 months? One of the advantages I see of populism is that politicians can aim to appease "gut feelings" without recourse to experts. I really do not like being governed by experts. Experts often have their own agendas and how many times have we seen Mitchie being accused of being a communist. Not the sort of person you want in charge of government psychology is it?

 

[quantinghome]

Many parties started off with vague promises in their early days no doubt. The important thing is to break the mould of British Politics. (Wasn't that the SDP slogan?)

How did the SDP do in the end?

The last party to properly break through was Labour in the early 20th century. That came after decades of developing social movements and local societies and trades unions, and after major changes in the voting franchise. It combined the industrial working class and progressive middle class (previously Liberal voters) to form a (sometimes) election-winning coalition. I can't see how Reform can do anything like that.

Why the negativity towards populism? As from its very description is that not what the people want? Or do you think people should be told what to do by their betters - i.e. the established politicians and system.

Surely we want change and at the moment any change from the status quo would be welcome.

Populism doesn't simply mean having policies which are popular with people. Populism views politics as being about "the people" versus "the elites". So even the current PM is a populist, convincing enough people that he represented "The Voice of The People" against the elites holding us back. It was nonsense, of course. Johnson is as elite as they come.

The problem with populism isn't that it espouses popular policies; it's that it seeks to pit "the people" against some "other" - be they right-wing attacks on "remainer elites" or "woke academics", far-right attacks on immigrants and muslims, or left wing attacks on "the 1%", or attacks from all political wings on "experts" who dare to contradict their political views. The allied danger is that it can be hijacked by someone with sufficient charisma for their own ends.

 

[Philip]

I am not convinced a Labour government would have us under harder restrictions than the current government; they are the party of the working man and it is accepted that the restrictions have a harder impact on the working sector of society. They are probably just playing party politics in their complaints to the Tories about restrictions not going far enough.

Tony Blair for example has, from what I have seen of his statements, been on the side of strong encouragement of vaccine take up but critical of excessive lockdowns and restrictions.

 

[Peterthegreat]

I am not convinced a Labour government would have us under harder restrictions than the current government; they are the party of the working man and it is accepted that the restrictions have a harder impact on the working sector of society. They are probably just playing party politics in their complaints to the Tories about restrictions not going far enough.

Tony Blair for example has, from what I have seen of his statements, been on the side of strong encouragement of vaccine take up but critical of excessive lockdowns and restrictions.

I would agree with that assessment.

 

[quantinghome]

I am not convinced a Labour government would have us under harder restrictions than the current government; they are the party of the working man and it is accepted that the restrictions have a harder impact on the working sector of society. They are probably just playing party politics in their complaints to the Tories about restrictions not going far enough.

Tony Blair for example has, from what I have seen of his statements, been on the side of strong encouragement of vaccine take up but critical of excessive lockdowns and restrictions.

I believe you're right. Labour aren't pushing for any restrictions above what the government is proposing.

 

[Cdd89]

I believe you're right. Labour aren't pushing for any restrictions above what the government is proposing.

I’m not sure what they stand for right now, to be honest (you’re correct that they can’t be directly pointed to as supporting harsher restrictions).

But they have historically opposed the government by demanding more restrictions; and not once by demanding fewer. For example, they did not support moving to step 4 as it “risked a summer of chaos”, have pushed masks at every opportunity, and they demanded the return of pre-departure travel testing.

As a relevant hypothetical to the point in the first paragraph, if the government indicated today that they would expand vaccine passports to include pubs and restaurants, do you think Labour would vote with or against the government?

 

[bramling]

I am not convinced a Labour government would have us under harder restrictions than the current government; they are the party of the working man and it is accepted that the restrictions have a harder impact on the working sector of society. They are probably just playing party politics in their complaints to the Tories about restrictions not going far enough.

Tony Blair for example has, from what I have seen of his statements, been on the side of strong encouragement of vaccine take up but critical of excessive lockdowns and restrictions.

The trouble when Blair opens his mouth is that people, and the Labour Party in particular, tend to then do the opposite.

This is what happens when you have a high-office politician who acquires a reputation of being honest with the truth.

 

[david1212]

Quite a few of us, as a result of disagreement with Government (and opposition) Covid strategy, seem to be finding ourselves politically homeless.

For me nothing new. My vote at the last few elections has been for what overall I considered the least worst option with consideration that with the current ' first past the post ' system a vote for a minor party in reality would be more likely to let in a party I considered to be worse. The one exception was when I submitted a spoilt paper by writing ' None of the above ' across it.

While for me while the Tories have fallen since March 2020 this is from a low level.

As to Starmer I have no confidence he would be a stronger leader. All he seems to be capable of is criticising every decision and digging into every mistake made by Boris & Co. Sure since March 2020 various senior people have made very poor judgements which realistically sooner or later would be uncovered. However back in time Labour have had scandals too. Had Labour been in power since March 2020 would non of them have made a poor judgement?

 

[quantinghome]

I’m not sure what they stand for right now, to be honest (you’re correct that they can’t be directly pointed to as supporting harsher restrictions).

But they have historically opposed the government by demanding more restrictions; and not once by demanding fewer. For example, they did not support moving to step 4 as it “risked a summer of chaos”, have pushed masks at every opportunity, and they demanded the return of pre-departure travel testing.

As a relevant hypothetical to the point in the first paragraph, if the government indicated today that they would expand vaccine passports to include pubs and restaurants, do you think Labour would vote with or against the government?

I guess it boils down to the precautionary principle. Labour have tended to advocate this more than the Tories. Events have proven this to be sometimes right (lockdowns were unfortunately inevitable and had they been applied quicker they would have been shorter and saved more lives) and sometimes wrong (moving to step 4 did not bring about a summer of chaos).

 

[NorthKent1989]

I will never vote Tory again, I voted them in 2010 because I was fed up with Labour at the time, snd in 2019 because the whole Brexit debacle needed sorting out at the time with a clear acknowledgment that Brexit won and we couldn’t have a second referendum, I voted Lib Dem in 2015 & 2017, in 2024 (or earlier) I’ll vote Reform, I think between the Tories & Labour who are restrictions and vaccine passport mad right now Reform looks absolutely sane in comparison!

Labour are an utter joke of a party that is unfit for purpose and the Tories have damaged themselves too much.

I find it laughable that people are apparently more concerned with populism than the fact that we could lose our freedoms completely over Covid.

 

[Dent]

lockdowns were unfortunately inevitable and had they been applied quicker they would have been shorter and saved more lives

Can anyone explain how a lockdown would be shorter if applied quicker? Surely the opposite is actually true, the more transmission is slowed down the longer it takes to build up heard immunity and reach endemic equilibrium.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Actually, let's just elect Count Binface.

He'll get us out of this!

Hang on a minute!

His idea of a face covering is more extreme than anyone else's...

 

[Cdd89]

I guess it boils down to the precautionary principle. Labour have tended to advocate this more than the Tories. Events have proven this to be sometimes right

Fair enough, and yes I begrudgingly agree that past lockdowns were necessary (at least at the peaks themselves, and in terms of business closures and gathering restrictions, if not other stuff or full duration; the details are way off topic for this thread!).

I would, however, counter that the ‘precautionary principle’ can be argued both ways. You can argue that we should act in line with a precautionary approach by not committing to damaging restrictions and their known harms before the damage of not acting is certain.

Some wish to ignore the countervailing harms of restrictions to push for the pro-restriction version of the precautionary principle, but in truth the harms of COVID vs lockdowns are finely balanced and so a precautionary argument can be made for both sides.

 

[yorkie]

Well, I believe lockdowns are a draconian restriction which were a necessary evil prior to mass vaccination. I don't believe they are now justified. They would only become justified if we were to see a large increase in fatalities of the same order we saw in March 2020 or January 2021. Is that really much different to your view?

If you agree restrictions are not justified we may be in agreement.

I guess it boils down to the precautionary principle. Labour have tended to advocate this more than the Tories. Events have proven this to be sometimes right (lockdowns were unfortunately inevitable and had they been applied quicker they would have been shorter and saved more lives) and sometimes wrong (moving to step 4 did not bring about a summer of chaos).

It is a fallacy that quicker lockdowns would have worked better; if the aim was to suppress and eliminate the virus, then yes you are right. But given the end of the pandemic will be reached by the state of endemic equilibrium, and given lockdowns merely delay infections, this is a completely flawed assessment.

 

[brad465]

I am not convinced a Labour government would have us under harder restrictions than the current government; they are the party of the working man and it is accepted that the restrictions have a harder impact on the working sector of society. They are probably just playing party politics in their complaints to the Tories about restrictions not going far enough.

Tony Blair for example has, from what I have seen of his statements, been on the side of strong encouragement of vaccine take up but critical of excessive lockdowns and restrictions.

Not only this, but I'm confident that large parts of the press, especially papers known to be more Tory supporting, would have made far greater efforts to criticise restrictions and highlighted costs of them a lot better, were Labour in charge of our response. It's possible that some tabloids might even have encouraged civil disobedience if they carried on long enough.

 

[Yew]

Have we just had too many EXPERTS opinions taken notice of in the past 21 months?

I have nothing against expert opinions, as long as they are not treated as gospel unless they are founded on a robust evidence base, and critique is allowed based on the evidence and external factors.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2021 ==

Not only this, but I'm confident that large parts of the press, especially papers known to be more Tory supporting, would have made far greater efforts to criticise restrictions and highlighted costs of them a lot better, were Labour in charge of our response. It's possible that some tabloids might even have encouraged civil disobedience if they carried on long enough.

I struggle to imagine the mail getting behind Comrade Corbyns Communist Lockdowns...

 

[Spamcan81]

Lifelong Tory. Not happy with Brexit but that didn't change my allegiance until Boris arrived. I cannot vote for any party/government led by him. Will vote for whoever has the best change of unseating my local Tory MP.

 

[ValentaFan1974]

Conservative and will continue to vote conservative.

 

[Berliner]

...people seem to want to vote for them because of a single issue. To me that is pretty worrying territory...

The thing is, the only people to blame if someone like reform came to power would be the traditional parties for the way they have acted over the last few years, especially with Covid, but the rot really set in pretty much around brexit. Covid and brexit has shown our political system in the UK is not for for purpose and certainly not one for the modern world. The issue is if reform got in they wouldn't change anything which was beneficial to the UK, would ride the gravy train like they did in Strasbourg (moan but not turn up and actually try and change anything) and on the back of scrapping all the Covid rules you'd also get some pretty nasty stuff being forced on us, but people will ignore that and vote out of protest.

Anyway, I'd probably not vote for the SNP again until they either get rid of everyone who is currently prominent in the party or pledge to take a more aggressive stance towards actually getting us independence. I would consider giving Alba a go if they come up with a good manifesto. I'd struggle to support the greens as I disagree with putting the environment above absolutely everything and anything and I out right refuse to ever cast a vote for a unionist party.

 

[bramling]

Quite a few of us, as a result of disagreement with Government (and opposition) Covid strategy, seem to be finding ourselves politically homeless.

If there was an General Election in the next month who would you vote for?

This is a fascinating topic, as it’s interesting to see many people here traditionally aligned to one of the main parties tearing into them, it’s just as vicious on both sides.

For my part I’m a traditional Conservative voter, however I would never nail my colours so firmly to the mast that I wouldn’t vote elsewhere if I felt circumstances dictated it was appropriate. I had considerable misgivings about Johnson in 2019, however there has been an issue - again affecting all parties - for some time now with lack of leadership talent, and this has been something which has worried me for a while.

I’m just about as unhappy and pissed off as can be with things as they are at the moment. I feel the Conservatives need a massive kicking, and that Johnson is unfit for office. This means that I will not vote Conservative whilst Johnson remains leader (and have made this crystal clear to my MP). I’m sufficiently disquieted by Johnson that this is a total red-line for me.

This introduces a difficulty as to who on earth to vote for. I could in theory vote Labour to send a message to the Conservatives, but then this is a vote for more restrictions. I would be very reluctant to fall into the trap of voting Lib Dem as some kind of protest. Not voting at all isn’t an option, and I’m not convinced there’s much point in practice in spoiling a ballot paper (though I did this at the last council elections). Likewise voting Reform has pitfalls too.

So goodness knows. At this moment I think on balance it would be Reform, but this is a very tough choice. My hope has tended to be that the Conservatives might become rather more anti-restriction and that Johnson might have been gone by now.

The one Caveat is I might have been more amenable to voting Conservative if my MP was someone like Steve Baker (though this doesn’t resolve the Johnson unfitness for office problem), but alas as it stands my MP is a complete waste of space.

Pretty depressing really.

 

[Bayum]

It has strengthened it if anything.

 

[PTR 444]

What is Reform’s current stance on HS2? Whether they cancel it mid-way through construction or not would determine whether I would vote for them or not.

 

[NorthKent1989]

Find it worrying that Labour: the party of more restrictions, are in third place in this thread, there’s more chance of Johnson being replaced by a anti lockdown libertarian Tory than Starmer backing down on restrictions.

Thankfully they’re third behind two parties who are pro freedom; Lib Dem’s and Reform

 

[Peterthegreat]

What is Reform’s current stance on HS2? Whether they cancel it mid-way through construction or not would determine whether I would vote for them or not.

Their candidate in Chesham stood on a very ant-HS2 platform. Obviously trying to capitalise on the local sentiment but it would appear they are anti-HS2 as a whole.

 

[35B]

Their candidate in Chesham stood on a very ant-HS2 platform. Obviously trying to capitalise on the local sentiment but it would appear they are anti-HS2 as a whole.

And in the process UKIP/BP/Reform have demonstrated their utter lack of principle - pursuing whatever line they think is most likely to gain support locally, rather than actually following any principles.

 

[43066]

I’m just about as unhappy and pissed off as can be with things as they are at the moment. I feel the Conservatives need a massive kicking, and that Johnson is unfit for office. This means that I will not vote Conservative whilst Johnson remains leader (and have made this crystal clear to my MP). I’m sufficiently disquieted by Johnson that this is a total red-line for me.

I had misgivings too but certainly didn’t expect him to be anything like as bad as he has turned out to be. Ultimately one suspects he’s a bit of an empty vessel, with no real underlying philosophy of his own to draw from, hence being heavily influenced by those around him. Hancock and Gove were certainly persuasive in pushing him towards restrictions, as was his own brush with Covid. The hope was the removal of Hancock in particular would change things, but alas appears not to be the case.

I suppose the best hope is that the rebellion + no significant change in hospitalisations will be enough to stave off whatever horrors might be awaiting us after Christmas.

And in the process UKIP/BP/Reform have demonstrated their utter lack of principle - pursuing whatever line they think is most likely to gain support locally, rather than actually following any principles.

No different to Labour then. Keir Starmer himself campaigned locally (in the southeast) against HS2 then criticised the current government for cancelling part of the project based on damage to the north. Shameless political opportunism, but of course that’s what politicians of hues engage in.

What principles exactly do Labour stand for these days? Much of their traditional voter base certainly don’t seem to feel much affinity with the party any longer. They appear to be relying on a dwindling tribal vote, students and the hard left.

 

[Peterthegreat]

And in the process UKIP/BP/Reform have demonstrated their utter lack of principle - pursuing whatever line they think is most likely to gain support locally, rather than actually following any principles.

Quite. As stated earlier they have "policies" that are completely unrealistic. They "will" reform just about everything and it will lead to more efficiencies, lower taxes, a better health service, more police on the streets, a better education system etc. With actually no indication of how they will achieve these things.
How anyone can be taken in by this is beyond my comprehension.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Labour's message is: Boosters, boosters and more boosters. Yes, vote with Plan B, but mostly: boosters. Labour is not advocating for 'even stricter restrictions'.

I mean, they have been advocating for stricter restrictions and were pushing for lockdowns, but go on.

 

[scarby]

As I am in Sweden, I voted "Other" in the poll, but in the next elections in Sweden I will most likely vote for Djurens Parti - the Party for the Animals.

The past 20 months have completely eroded what little faith I already had in authorities to absolutely zero.

I simply have no trust left - there is nothing, a complete vacuum.

 

[37424]

Find it worrying that Labour: the party of more restrictions, are in third place in this thread, there’s more chance of Johnson being replaced by a anti lockdown libertarian Tory than Starmer backing down on restrictions.

Thankfully they’re third behind two parties who are pro freedom; Lib Dem’s and Reform

Do you think this thread is representative of the wider General Public given the administrator of this forum very anti lockdown views?

I myself will be more inclined to vote Labour.