UK General Election 2024

[oldman]

they will lurch right. they always do!

Yes and no. Cameron put on a show of liberal toryism (and to be fair was socially quite liberal) but when it came to money it was full-on austerity (with tax breaks for the rich).

Watching the BBC politics programme at lunchtime both Tories had the same script - a big majority would endanger democracy (not like 1983 or 1997) and if I was on the left I'd be voting Green. Desperate stuff.

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't think the Tories would be killed, the center-right of the party will move to Labour/Lib Dems, the right of the party will be merged with Reform.

So what happens to the Tory Party then, if it is not killed because their members find political homes elsewhere?

 

[YorkRailFan]

So what happens to the Tory Party then, if it is not killed because their members find political homes elsewhere?

Merged, like the Canadian Conservatives.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Watching the BBC politics programme at lunchtime both Tories had the same script - a big majority would endanger democracy (not like 1983 or 1997) and if I was on the left I'd be voting Green. Desperate stuff.

An ironic message if you remember that just 9 years ago in the 2015 election, the Tories were claiming that Labour would be a danger precisely because they probably wouldn't have a majority (all the 'coalition of chaos' stuff), with the implication that we need a majority Government. Plus the Tories' defence of FPTP is usually based on the (dubious) idea that the UK needs single-party majority Governments

 

[ainsworth74]

An ironic message if you remember that just 9 years ago in the 2015 election, the Tories were claiming that Labour would be a danger precisely because they probably wouldn't have a majority (all the 'coalition of chaos' stuff), with the implication that we need a majority Government. Plus the Tories' defence of FPTP is usually based on the (dubious) idea that the UK needs single-party majority Governments

Yes but this is the wrong sort of majority my good man! Can't be having those dodgy socialist Labour types having untrammelled power now can we!

 

[AlterEgo]

Merged, like the Canadian Conservatives.

Merged into what? Sorry, I'm not following.

 

[simonw]

Merged into what? Sorry, I'm not following.

The Canadian conservatives got nearly wiped out. What remained merged with the Canadian equivalent of reform

Conservative Party of Canada - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[AlterEgo]

The Canadian conservatives got nearly wiped out. What remained merged with the Canadian equivalent of reform

Conservative Party of Canada - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yes, I'm familiar, but I don't see the Tories merging into Reform.

What is more likely is Farage abandoning his little special purpose vehicle, Reform UK (limited) and simply attempting to take back the Tory rump of supporters into the Tory Party, where it will then die if he becomes its leader.

Anyone who is voting Reform deserves what is coming; this is not going to be a good time to live in somewhere like Clacton. Labour are not interested in places like that any more; they know where their vote is and it isn't in coastal towns which have been on life support for decades.

 

[jon0844]

I see a Trump victory in the US election and a rightward lurch from the Tories, which will be enough to kill them as a party. It's not inconceivable that in another election cycle, the Greens or Lib Dems might be the second party.

Trump can only have one more term (unless he goes full dictator) so I have no idea what happens to MAGA after that. How does the GOP return from Trump? Will Donald Trump Jr take over the MAGA movement?

Here we have the potential for many more years of chaos, while the issue with Trump (and Biden's age) will eventually each sort themselves out.

 

[Howardh]

Who will be Labour's Minister for Transport (ie Minister for the railways) thinking is there a topic he could deal with immediately - such as ticket acceptance on other TOC's when your train is cancelled/running very late as mentioned on the "suggestion" thread; or any other topics which could be reasonably seen to be dealt with in the autumn? Any suggestions for topics s/he could deal with in the next 6 months?

 

[OuterDistant]

this is not going to be a good time to live in somewhere like Clacton

This is off topic, but is anyone else like me - every time you hear "Clacton" you automatically think "Class 309"?

And they came into service twenty years before I was even born, and I'm about 160 miles away!

 

[nw1]

This is off topic, but is anyone else like me - every time you hear "Clacton" you automatically think "Class 309"?

I probably did at one point, but now for better or for worse I associate the place primarily with right-wing politics.

Clacton must presumably have been a more important place than it appears to be now, as back in the day got it got its own dedicated batch of express EMUs.

 

[Howardh]

This is off topic, but is anyone else like me - every time you hear "Clacton" you automatically think "Class 309"?

And they came into service twenty years before I was even born, and I'm about 160 miles away!

I just think "somewhere to go to when you can't afford to go abroad"! Which is a real daft thing to say seeing as due to hotel rates and rail fares, it's probably cheaper to have a week in Benidorm than Clacton! I've never been, so can't comment on how outstanding a resort it is. But I can guarantee the sea will be too cold for me to even paddle in *big softie*.

 

[johnnychips]

Anyone who is voting Reform deserves what is coming; this is not going to be a good time to live in somewhere like Clacton. Labour are not interested in places like that any more; they know where their vote is and it isn't in coastal towns which have been on life support for decades.

I would generally agree with this. As members probably know, the most deprived area in the UK is not some hellhole in the North or in Glasgow, but Jaywick, about a mile and a half from Clacton. I’m not a ‘dark tourist’ but visited it once after a nice walk along the shore from Clacton.

It did not strike me as ‘rough’, as in dangerous, but just incredibly dilapidated. Like Rhyl, but without any tourist trappings.

 

[DarloRich]

Yes and no. Cameron put on a show of liberal toryism (and to be fair was socially quite liberal) but when it came to money it was full-on austerity (with tax breaks for the rich).

Watching the BBC politics programme at lunchtime both Tories had the same script - a big majority would endanger democracy (not like 1983 or 1997) and if I was on the left I'd be voting Green. Desperate stuff.

Yes but before Cameron we had hauge, Howard and IDS. Cameron came at the end of that lurch right when the party was ready to win again

 

[brad465]

Anyone who had been following him would already know his allegiance, but now Farage's stance on Russia-Ukraine is out there for all to see:

Nigel Farage criticised for saying West provoked Ukraine war

The Reform UK leader told the BBC that "of course" the war was President Vladimir Putin's fault.

www.bbc.co.uk

Nigel Farage has said the West "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine by expanding the European Union and Nato military alliance eastwards.

The Reform UK leader told the BBC that "of course" the war was President Vladimir Putin's fault.
But he added that the expansion of the EU and Nato gave him a "reason" to tell the Russian people "they're coming for us again".
In an interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson, Mr Farage was challenged over his judgement and past statements, including when he named Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world leader he most admired in 2014.
"I said I disliked him as a person, but admired him as a political operator because he's managed to take control of running Russia," Mr Farage said.
He was then pressed over a social media post in February 2022, external, when he claimed the Russian invasion of Ukraine was "a consequence of EU and Nato expansion".
Mr Farage said he had been arguing since the 1990s that "the ever eastward expansion" of the Nato military alliance and the EU was giving President Putin "a reason to [give to] his Russian people to say they're coming for us again and to go to war".
He added: "We provoked this war. Of course, it's [President Putin's] fault."

 

[Gloster]

Anyone who had been following him would already know his allegiance, but now Farage's stance on Russia-Ukraine is out there for all to see:

Nigel Farage criticised for saying West provoked Ukraine war

The Reform UK leader told the BBC that "of course" the war was President Vladimir Putin's fault.

www.bbc.co.uk

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2024 ==

I can’t get rid of the above: I have no idea why.

Didn’t Farage say something complementary about Andrew Tate (wash mouth out) in the last day or two? I saw it somewhere but it disappeared before I could read it and I can’t find it again.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Who will be Labour's Minister for Transport (ie Minister for the railways) thinking is there a topic he could deal with immediately - such as ticket acceptance on other TOC's when your train is cancelled/running very late as mentioned on the "suggestion" thread; or any other topics which could be reasonably seen to be dealt with in the autumn? Any suggestions for topics s/he could deal with in the next 6 months?

Most obvious to me would be to roll back LNER's recent fare revisions which make spontaneous travel eye-wateringly expensive.

 

[takno]

Anyone who had been following him would already know his allegiance, but now Farage's stance on Russia-Ukraine is out there for all to see:

Nigel Farage criticised for saying West provoked Ukraine war

The Reform UK leader told the BBC that "of course" the war was President Vladimir Putin's fault.

www.bbc.co.uk

How very decent of him to qualify that he doesn't like Putin, but does "admire" him for being a ruthless dictator.

I mean I don't especially care if he thinks Putin looks dreamy and would love to take him to dinner and a show. The literal problem is that Putin is a ruthless dictator, and yet that, specifically, is what Farage admires.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2024 ==

Most obvious to me would be to roll back LNER's recent fare revisions which make spontaneous travel eye-wateringly expensive.

You'll want to talk to your Labour MP about that as soon as possible after the election then. Labour seem to have been listening to the GBR transition team, and as far as I can see the GBR transition team seem to think the whole LNER disaster is the perfect way forward.

 

[nw1]

How very decent of him to qualify that he doesn't like Putin, but does "admire" him for being a ruthless dictator.

Is this a major tactical error by Farage? I mean, I know he wants the votes of the hard-right but being a little bit ambivalent on Putin is a bit much even for them.

 

[Sorcerer]

Anyone who had been following him would already know his allegiance, but now Farage's stance on Russia-Ukraine is out there for all to see:

Nigel Farage criticised for saying West provoked Ukraine war

The Reform UK leader told the BBC that "of course" the war was President Vladimir Putin's fault.

www.bbc.co.uk

I get the feeling that Farage won't be anywhere near as lambasted for this statement as much as Jeremy Corbyn would even though both essentially operate along the same line of thinking that it was the actions of NATO that provoked Putin into invading Ukraine. With Corbyn though at the very least you could be somewhat assured on two things.

Firstly, he's no longer relevant on the mainstream political stage outside of people bringing him up trying to discredit Keir Starmer, while Farage is running as leader of a party that has already gained enough momentum to overtake the Tories in a few polls, and secondly because I believe Corbyn's position stems from dangerous idealism and naivety but not strictly malice, meanwhile Farage actually expresses a degree of admiration for him as a political operator.

It's not that you can't say something that might sound remotely positive about your enemies, and I for example would just as well be willing to say something such as "Osama bin Laden was an intelligent man". But I wouldn't say that I admired him for it because, at the end of the day, he was nothing short of a mass murdering terrorist, just like how Putin is a power-hungry warmonger that is not to be admired for his actions.

 

[YorkRailFan]

And just today the Tories issued them pulled this social media post. Oops.

They have since deleted that tweet.

An embarrassing incident for Reform. They paid a vetting company a sum of money to vet their candidates, but the company seems to have not done any vetting.

Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage told ITV News on Tuesday that a vetting company is to blame for failing to do background checks on his candidates.

His comments come after ITV News uncovered what appears to be racist social media posts by two candidates standing for Reform UK. Four other candidates were part of a Facebook group that regularly features Islamophobic and racist content.

Reform UK said it paid the company Vetting.com around £144,000 to vet more than 400 of its candidates in April - but claims the company failed to return any research.

When asked about the vetting process, Farage claimed that his party had been "stitched up", adding: "They literally did nothing, so there are one or two candidates who have slipped through the net who we would rather weren't there."

The deal with Vetting.com was supposed to cover background checks, including criminal records, social media posts, and adverse media checks on potential Reform UK candidates and donors.

Reform UK Chairman Richard Tice said: “They promised a deep dive, particularly on social media, and adverse press checks, received our candidate data but then delivered absolutely nothing."

A spokesperson for Reform UK added: “As we have already shown, if anything emerges that precludes a candidate from being a member of Reform UK, we will not hesitate to act, after a full and fair investigation."

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-06-18/reform-uk-leader-nigel-farage-questioned-about-vetting-of-party-candidates

 

[Class 317]

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2024 ==

I can’t get rid of the above: I have no idea why.

Didn’t Farage say something complementary about Andrew Tate (wash mouth out) in the last day or two? I saw it somewhere but it disappeared before I could read it and I can’t find it again.

Just reported on sky news live TV feed that he has defended his comments from February relating to Tate defending male culture.

 

[Busaholic]

Just reported on sky news live TV feed that he has defended his comments from February relating to Tate defending male culture.

Andrew Tate is a complete and utter cult.

 

[nw1]

Just reported on sky news live TV feed that he has defended his comments from February relating to Tate defending male culture.

Oh dear, what is he on?

I thought he wanted to use Reform's performance to manoeuvre himself into power.

Savvy political operator? You've got to be joking.

By defending Tate and seeming to semi-defend Putin he's going to attract no-one, but put off rather a lot of people.

Is this the Reform train now firmly off the rails, I wonder?

(And as an aside, could this also mean a big Labour majority is now more questionable due to Reformers switching back to the Tories once they realise how unhinged Farage apparently is?)

 

[Busaholic]

(And as an aside, could this also mean a big Labour majority is now more questionable due to Reformers switching back to the Tories once they realise how unhinged Farage apparently is?)

No more likely than Trump's supporters having misgivings about the orange one.

 

[jfollows]

The Labour candidate for Tatton is a councillor for the Lancaster Gate ward of Westminster Council, I don't know whether or not he plans on continuing to perform both roles if elected in Tatton. His biography shows that he grew up in my locality, though.

I should clarify that the candidate has now confirmed to me that he will resign his Westminster post and move to live in Tatton if he wins the election.

 

[aavm]

Some Conservative MPs must be deeply regretting dumping Boris.

 

[D6130]

Some Conservative MPs must be deeply regretting dumping Boris.

Why?

 

[telstarbox]

Who will be Labour's Minister for Transport (ie Minister for the railways) thinking is there a topic he could deal with immediately - such as ticket acceptance on other TOC's when your train is cancelled/running very late as mentioned on the "suggestion" thread; or any other topics which could be reasonably seen to be dealt with in the autumn? Any suggestions for topics s/he could deal with in the next 6 months?

She would probably be Louise Haigh as the current shadow transport secretary.