General Election 2024

[towny44]

Any advance on 14.

If they don’t do any better than when they were last in power I’ll give it 5

They were bequeathed a fairly healthy economy in 1997, and although the current economy is now improving, the debt level is far worse. So they won't find it easy to improve the public sector spending.

[Onelife]

Any advance on 14.

If they don’t do any better than when they were last in power I’ll give it 5

They were bequeathed a fairly healthy economy in 1997, and although the current economy is now improving, the debt level is far worse. So they won't find it easy to improve the public sector spending.

They say they won’t be robbing Peter to pay Paul…thank gawd my real name is Rupert.

Whilst it may be unpopular, I think the child bennift system could do with a complete rethink with more onus on responsible parenting and not relying on the state to pay for those little extras…massive savings could be made to pay for public spending projects if the government tightened its grip on who gets child bennift.

Having a family cruise or flights to one of the Costa’s on the back of it isn’t responsible government spending in my opinion.

[Stephen]

As an aside, it’s all gone quiet on the post office scandal with the elections taking centre stage.

[david63]

So today:

Labour - 100,000 child case places
Conservatives - 8,000 new police offi9cers
Lib Dems - 8,000 new GPs

Can I ask a silly question - "Where are all these people suddenly going to come from to fill these vacancies?"

[Chalgrave4]

They all live in the big house next to the magic money tree

[Stephen]

So today:

Labour - 100,000 child case places
Conservatives - 8,000 new police offi9cers
Lib Dems - 8,000 new GPs

Can I ask a silly question - "Where are all these people suddenly going to come from to fill these vacancies?"

Let alone the time to train them.

The government purse strings are as tight as a ducks a*se pre election, yet when they want your vote it’s suddenly money no object.

[Mervyn and Trish]

They all need to start telling us where the money is coming from. There are only three answers. More taxes, cuts elsewhere or borrowing.

[Onelife]

I’m sure am not alone on this forum but I’m certainly the only one who has been saying our political system is broken…just wondering how many of you now believe that our political system needs a complete overhaul, especially in light of our political parties telling us how they will make our lives better without the means to do so. You must know that we will be embarking on another merry go round of promises that come to no fruition.

You all know where I stand with my political views but as this won’t be an option in my lifetime, we have to work with what we have and reform it.

What we need Imo is a leader of a party that is prepared to seek cross party dialogue and the only way this is going to happen is if we change our voting system to that of PR. We also need to take a close look at how personal advisers are used and their influence over civil servants who ultimately tailor policy with… what I believe to be personal political bias.

The so-called Ministerial code is a complete and utter joke where only those who get exposed via the media face any real consequences…in essence, make it harder for them to rub each other’s back for fear of much severer punishments.

I think we should look towards more political educated MP’s.

What we don’t need is a political landscape of disillusioned voters who without faith in our political system could easily turn their backs on authority and the values that keeps the lid on civil unrest.

Scraping the Monarchy would show the younger generations that we have emerged from the dark ages.

[Mervyn and Trish]

As ever you talk sense then blow it by your last line. The Monarchy is consistently more popular than any political party and abolishing it would do nothing towards solving our political problems. Indeed it would add to them because one of the politicians you so detest would end up bring elected as President.

[Ranchi]

Not sure about PR. Certainly I was all for it as a callow youth but a flatmate (regular Morning Star reader) argued that it would mean that eg NF could have representation in Parliament.
Wind the clock on almost 50 years and I hear rumblings about the power wielded by Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater north of the border. In the last GE they both polled less than 4% with Lorna romping home last in 5th place. Yet due to the SNP not having a clear majority they were invited to join with them and were rewarded.

I’m not sure if we need more or fewer ‘politically educated’ politicians. I think I would prefer candidates with more worldly experience than the current route of many. University for PPE, Spad job, (relatively) safe seat. I’ve just finished Rory Stewart’s book ‘Politics on the Edge’ and he is quite withering about the court with which Johnson & Cameron surrounded themselves.

I do agree though, we need a change.

I can’t remember a more negative election.

I can’t say who I will vote for - it seems that there are lots of reasons not to vote for a candidate but few positives.

I’d like to vote for a politician with some integrity - some hope!

[allatc]

So today:

Labour - 100,000 child case places
Conservatives - 8,000 new police offi9cers
Lib Dems - 8,000 new GPs

Can I ask a silly question - "Where are all these people suddenly going to come from to fill these vacancies?"

They are coming across the channel in little boats

[towny44]

PR sounds like a sensible way for representatives of varying opinions to have a say in the policy of the country. But will it produce a more cohesive society, or will it just polarise the views of the various factions.
At least with the current system you have labour, conservative etc voters among all the ethnic groups, but PR will be unlikely to continue this political diversity, resulting in an even more fractured society.

[Ray B]

Expats who have live in another country for more than 15 years have now been given back the rite to vote in our general election. Is this fair. They have abandoned our country to live in another , only drawing a pension (maybe), but not contributing to our economy.
I can not see why they have the chance to vote, to determine our future government.

[Mervyn and Trish]

No that mystifies me too. They don't contribute or usually pay tax here. So they'll surely all vote for any party that increases their pensions without caring where it comes from.

[Onelife]

Expats who have live in another country for more than 15 years have now been given back the rite to vote in our general election. Is this fair. They have abandoned our country to live in another , only drawing a pension (maybe), but not contributing to our economy.
I can not see why they have the chance to vote, to determine our future government.

Neither can I...good point Ray.

[Onelife]

PR sounds like a sensible way for representatives of varying opinions to have a say in the policy of the country. But will it produce a more cohesive society, or will it just polarise the views of the various factions.
At least with the current system you have labour, conservative etc voters among all the ethnic groups, but PR will be unlikely to continue this political diversity, resulting in an even more fractured society.

I see where you are coming from John and accept you could be right, however, whilst accepting there is no perfect solution, the reasons I would welcome a change in our voting system is that our present FPTP system has stifled any opportunity for smaller fringe parties to make any political headway. We in this country effectively have a two-party system whereby voters either waste their vote, or vote for Labour or Conservative.

Betting in a race where all but two of the runners have been knobbled would under any other circumstance be considered a fixed race. This was clearly demonstrated in the recent five party election debate with Penny Mordaunt and Angela Rayner only addressing each other with their accusations/replies, this presumably was because they didn’t consider the other runners a threat to their respective stables. This isn’t a sound democratic voting system Imo.

The philosophy behind FPTP is that it creates (in most cases) a majority government thus allowing its policies to face less obstruction when passing through the chambers…. however, considering the policy making of this, and previous governments over the last 27 years I truly believe it’s time that more emphasis should be placed on collective cross-party representation, whether that be through commons committees or fringe parties being allowed more media debate/political impute. …. this can only be achieved if our voting system reflects the opportunity to do this…. I’m not sure which version of PR or AV would be best suited to allow this to happen, but it’s clear that if we don’t want another 27 years of ill thought out polices and U-turns, we need to do something radical and move away from this lethargic approach to how our political system is failing our country….at all levels.

[david63]

Agree with him or not there is no excuse to throw anything at Nigel Farage or anyone else for that matter be they a candidate or not.

Bring back the stocks I say

[Stephen]

I agree, but until we have a more robust legal system those people will continue do as they please knowing full well they will probably just get a warning and bound over or at most a fine.

The prisons are already overflowing so very unlikely a custodial sentence would be on the cards.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I can see the attraction of PR. However I can also see two snags. Firstly some countries that have it have been struck by paralysis for years, unable to get legislation through because one party or another is opposed. Or someone pulls out and the coalition collapses.

The other is getting it set up in the first place. Occasionally parties have supported the idea, but once in power under FPTP suddenly decide it's not so clever after all. Who in their right mind would change to a system under which they lose out?

My preference would be to keep the Commons as is, but replace the Lords with a new second chamber, given more clout and elected by PR.

[david63]

a new second chamber, given more clout and elected by PR.

But wouldn't that run into the same problems as outlined in your first paragraph?

You could end up with a situation where the HoC passes some legislation but the "House of Representatives" (that has a familiar ring to it!) doesn't. You literally could have a couple of members of this new house blocking everything which would be a worst case scenario unless there was something built into the system whereby it could not be blocked - which then somewhat defeats the reason for it being there.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Yes you're right. I suppose by more clout I didn't mean absolute power to block, just more effective than the current Lords talking shop.

[Onelife]

In horse racing you would get a minimum of 10 years ban for this kind of thing.

It makes you wonder if there an honest one amongst them.

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-06-12/ris ... nouncement

[david63]

Do the commentators on the news have to state the bleeding obvious?

Last night some woman said "There are many voters who have not made up their minds - so we don't know which way they are going to vote"!

Who would have thought of that?

[Mervyn and Trish]

Well I'm stunned by that conclusion.

[Ray B]

Maybe now that Detectives are handling the betting problem, the media will now concentrate on the politics