How is the Tory government doing?

okocha wrote:I understood it to be the case that Starmer's first priority was to sort out the internal squabbling, particularly the anti-semitic conflict, which he seems to have done. He has appointed some good shadow cabinet ministers to key positions.

Meanwhile, he has left it to the Tories to continue to shoot themselves in the foot, so that he wouldn't come across to the public as simply point-scoring. Whenever possible, he has agreed with them on points of policy (not often, for obvious reasons!).

When the time is right, far nearer to a general election, he will launch more serious attacks, probably employing others suited to delivering with greater panache.

I've just read an excellent review of the Tory party conference which concluded that Johnson should give up his role in politics and instead become a stand-up comedian, given that his speech to the faithful was almost totally devoid of actual policy details but had them rolling in the aisles.

 I laughed too......

Hahaha...greater panache...!!!

Yeah right...

Anyway the point I'm making is that currently the conservatives hold 362 of the 650 seats - Labour hold 199.

To win outright control they need 326 seats - or to put it another way win 127 more seats at the next General Election.

That's simply not going to happen is it?

The next biggest party is the SNP - they hold 45 out of the 59 seats there - so if they win them all and go into coalition with Labour that still amounts to 258 seats - 68 seats short of a majority.

The next biggest is Lib Dem with 12, then the DUC with 8 - and both these parties have worked in recent coalition governments with the Tory's.

Next is Sinn Fein with 7 and they don't take their seats in parliament.

That leaves 17 other seats which includes the speakers.

The maths is simply against the Labour Party unless they win a landslide of Conservative seats.

I think they need more than a great deal of speakers with panache don't you?

https://members.parliament.uk/parties/Commons

okocha wrote:I understood it to be the case that Starmer's first priority was to sort out the internal squabbling, particularly the anti-semitic conflict, which he seems to have done. He has appointed some good shadow cabinet ministers to key positions.

Meanwhile, he has left it to the Tories to continue to shoot themselves in the foot, so that he wouldn't come across to the public as simply point-scoring. Whenever possible, he has agreed with them on points of policy (not often, for obvious reasons!).

When the time is right, far nearer to a general election, he will launch more serious attacks, probably employing others suited to delivering with greater panache.

I've just read an excellent review of the Tory party conference which concluded that Johnson should give up his role in politics and instead become a stand-up comedian, given that his speech to the faithful was almost totally devoid of actual policy details but had them rolling in the aisles.

 I laughed too......

I’m sure you’re right that’s what Starmers’ teams strategy is. Keep it light on policy to avoid scrutiny and leave it to the Tories to mess up - I’m not convinced it’s working though.

In terms of the squabbling, I wanted to see him unify the party. He stood on a left wing ticket of policies and he’s ditched them almost entirely - think what you like of the party’s left wing but it a Labour government is possible the centre and left of the party have to be unified or we have no chance: See Biden’s approach to doing that with the Dem party. I suspect they’re gambling left wingers have nowhere else to go when it comes to an actual vote, but that’s a really risky strategy.

Anyway, it would be pretty unusual for Starmer to be kicked out before he gets to compete in an election - so we’ll have to see what happens.

A crisis per day
Sends PM away
On holiday....


The Daily Mirror leads on the prime minister's holiday, with the headline: "Only here for the peer." The paper says that Mr Johnson is staying in a luxury villa which belongs to Zac Goldsmith, who he made a peer in 2019. The paper quotes shadow Treasury minister Bridget Phillipson, who said: "In the teeth of a crisis of its own making, the government has put its 'out of office' sign on." (BBC News)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Does the prime minister not get a holiday? If your friend offers you his pad for a few days do you turn him down?

Your obsession with Boris and the Tories needs to stop.

p.s. still waiting for you to tell us how Brexit has destroyed your life.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Does the prime minister not get a holiday? If your friend offers you his pad for a few days do you turn him down?

Your obsession with Boris and the Tories needs to stop.

p.s. still waiting for you to tell us how Brexit has destroyed your life.

Apart from everything else that Lusty pointed out to you very clearly about the disastrous consequences of Brexit for ALL of us, the focus on Brexit prevented Boris from paying due attention to the warnings about the preparations needed re any pandemic, as the overnight report makes abundantly clear. 

He transmits a cavalier attitude about emergencies and hides, as now, when he should be facing up to his responsibilities as PM.

 Thousands of citizens died unecessarily, especially in care homes, due to a lack of planning and preparedness that he was warned about at the time (Cygnus), yet Boris fronts the Tory Party conference with his rehearsed comedy act....and gets cheered by the sycophants.

You need to stop your comedy act too when it's inapproptiate, and get real about serious issues.

okocha wrote:
Apart from everything else that Lusty pointed out to you very clearly about the disastrous consequences of Brexit for ALL of us, the focus on Brexit prevented Boris from paying due attention to the warnings about the preparations needed re any pandemic, as the overnight report makes abundantly clear. 

He transmits a cavalier attitude about emergencies and hides, as now, when he should be facing up to his responsibilities as PM.

 Thousands of citizens died unecessarily, especially in care homes, due to a lack of planning and preparedness that he was warned about at the time (Cygnus), yet Boris fronts the Tory Party conference with his rehearsed comedy act....and gets cheered by the sycophants.

You need to stop your comedy act too when it's inapproptiate, and get real about serious issues.

I doubt there's ever a good time for a PM to have a holiday. Out of season in October seems pretty fair to me. If Boris brought about world peace and gave everyone a million pounds you'd still find fault. That seems to be the way you're wired.

And if you think a football forum is the place for serious debate perhaps you should take a holiday too.

I prefer to keep it light because there's enough misery in the world right now, moaning about everything isn't going to change anything.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

I doubt there's ever a good time for a PM to have a holiday. Out of season in October seems pretty fair to me. If Boris brought about world peace and gave everyone a million pounds you'd still find fault. That seems to be the way you're wired.

And if you think a football forum is the place for serious debate perhaps you should take a holiday too.

I prefer to keep it light because there's enough misery in the world right now, moaning about everything isn't going to change anything.

Weird that that right wing media did nothing but moan about the EU for 30 years and now that Brexit is slowly bringing the country to it's knees, they don't seem to want to talk about it.

As for Boris, the more relevant analogy would be that if he murdered their children Brexiteers would still find some way of justifying it.

All the signs were there!

Eton College writes to Boris' father in 1982:

You think everyone with a poor school report should be barred from government?

Post up your school report, let's see how right or wrong it was.

Everyone who makes an ass of themselves on Have I Got News For You should be banned from Government.

Another own goal on the way folks.

With Boris trying to position himself as an environmental campaigner ahead of the forthcoming summit, there's been a bit of a kerfuffle about the Environment Bill that the government are trying to push through.

Basically an amendment to try to stop pumping raw sewage into our rivers - and incredibly, companies did this over 400 thousand times last year which is why we've got the dirtiest rivers in Europe - was voted down by the government.

Obviously folk were outraged by this and so the Tories turned to Twatter etc en masse to defend the governments blatant disregard for our environment - and Boris's hypocrisy - Backstory here.

Unsurprisingly, all the Tories involved with defending the governments' pro-shit stance on social media came out with almost identical statements - Here.

Sure enough, Tory MPs faced a huge backlash from their own constituents and would you believe it? - a few hours ago DEFRA announced this.

Yet another example of headless chickens heading off in the wrong direction and doing a big fat U-turn when they realised it undermined their popularity which - let's be honest - is the only thing they care about.

No doubt Sunak will be handing money out like sweeties to shore up their support in today's budget - despite that driving up inflation and prices at a time where our national borrowing is at the greatest peacetime level in our nation's history.

Have just emailed my local MP to ask how she voted re the sewage issue, and whether she wears a mask in the HoC.....

As expected it's a budget aimed at an unsuspecting electorate.

For context, the Consumer Price Index is forecast to rise by 4% withing a year and inflation - already at 3.1% - is also on the rise.

So simply to keep the "real cost of living" where it is - let alone to get it back to where it was when the Tories took over - we're looking at 4 to 4.5% wage rises across the board.

Sunak's showboating for the crowd - including targetting the prosecco, fruit ciders and beer vote amongst others - masked a much deeper issue and yet still fell short of what is required.

It came across as "splashing the cash". But in the scheme of things it was like putting lipstick on a pig and calling it sexy.

In amongst it all there were some good things, especially for the big housebuilders and landowners but equally there were some glaring omissions that will impact heavily on working families and especially those in need of extra support at a time of steadily rising costs.

Having had a little more time to reflect on the budget and it's broader implications, for me it's a mixed bag affecting people in different circumstances in different ways.

Millions of  people will be worse off according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies but it's not as simple as that.

Despite the showboating rhetoric about no new taxes....in September Sunak announced
that all employees, employers and the self-employed will pay an additional 1.25% in National Insurance contributions.
Technically, he wasn't actually lying - as he'd already announced it so it's not "new"

For me personally i.e. a pensioner I know and accept that my State Pension and my savings will be outstripped by price rises and inflation lag (which the OBR were quick to say is more likely to be 5% and rising after Sunak claimed it would peak at 4%) but I like beer and with the reduction in tax partially offsetting the increase in transport and ingredients costs theoretically the price shouldn't rocket in the foreseeable future so I'm happy with that. But the below inflation 3.1% "increase" in the State Pension will be immediately eaten up by increased Council Tax, rising fuel costs, and general price increases due to inflation.

The "super rich" were unaffected - so no wealth tax and nothing to get after the tax dodgers.

People on low incomes were given a few crumbs with which to offset the trouble ahead.
But Sunak had already said that the lower tax threshold will be frozen for 5 years from April 2021 - which as we head into the "higher wage/higher prices" economy will push more and more lower income earners into paying tax.

Middle income earners were slammed though with increased NI and prices rising at the fastest rate in 30 years.

And I'm still wondering how reducing the tax on internal flights fits with their agenda for climate change? Surely that would encourage folk to fly more if the saving is passed on to the customers? Why aren't they looking at greener alternatives like a decent rail network that compares with our European neighbours?

If borrowing is finally going to be cut back from it's current all time high in the next few years as Sunak claims it will there is only one way to pay for it all - increased GDP - so Britain is going to have to start working smarter and harder and moreover, resolve all the supply chain issues and skills shortages pronto.

One thing that did cross the line though was Sunak gleefully suggesting that public sector workers including the NHS would get a pay rise next year. No they won't. What is actually happening is that the pay freeze will be lifted - so they will be legally allowed to negotiate - but as Mr Frosty Brexit found out negotiation doesn't necessarily mean they'll get it. And if they do, will it even cover the rise in the cost of living?

Perhaps the only slightly amusing thing in the whole budget was Sunak saying that this government was going to get economy back into the healthy shape it was in 2010.

Didn't his script writers bother to tell him that the economy in 2010 was built on 13 years of Labour government?

So much to talk about today:

Boris "running scared" as he dodges the Tory sleaze debate.

Raab defending Geoffrey Cox spending months and earning >£1million working as a consultant in the British Virgin Islands - advising them on how to respond to the British government's concern re corruption/tax evasion etc (i.e. against the British taxpayer!) Hardly working for his constituents is it?

But the story that interested me most was the one about the Tories threatening to deny funding in constituencies where the MP rebels against the Tory Whip.

Withdrawing the whip is a reasonable action if an MP votes against his own party, but threatening to make his constituents suffer is straight out of the Stalinist playbook.

A press conference has been scheduled at 16:30 today. I wonder what it could be?

karlypants wrote:A press conference has been scheduled at 16:30 today. I wonder what it could be?

A red herring methinks....

"Boris Johnson will give a press conference at 4.30pm today after dashing back to the COP26 climate summit.
The Prime Minister boarded a train from London to Glasgow this morning after he was slammed for taking a domestic flight back from the global gathering last week.
Mr Johnson will issue a desperate plea to negotiators to "pull out the stops" for real progress as the two-week summit closes this Friday or Saturday.
It came as the UK government announced a target for all new UK HGVs to be zero-emissions by 2040 - 10 years after the date for cars and vans.
But Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband said there had already been a “devastating reality check” - after a draft COP agreement warned far more needs to be done to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.
Mr Miliband also suggested the Prime Minister was visiting Glasgow to distract from a growing sleaze scandal in Westminster.
Mr Johnson is thought to have axed a planned Chequers away day for Cabinet ministers tomorrow - and last night, Tory vice chair Andrew Bowie quit his role amid reports he was unable to support the government publicly over sleaze."

NHS waiting lists are at the highest level since records began, over 300 thousand people have been waiting over a year for operations and ambulance drivers are saying more lives are at risk due to lengthening waiting times for emergency services.
In part, it's a result of Covid, in part it's a result of Brexit and in part it's a result of this government's decisions, but whatever you choose to blame, it's another indicator of the continuing decline in standards of living.
Sad news indeed, especially when accompanied by the news that the country has slipped behind the economic growth targets that Sunak is banking on.

In the budget, Sunak made financial provision for the NHS to address the backlog but the obvious problem is that we need more doctors, nurses and carers on the ground to make the reduction in waiting times - having the money to recruit them is great but we do not have a sufficient number of trained British people not already working in the NHS to recruit.

And the issue will be further exacerbated by staff refusing to be jabbed leaving the system - today is the deadline in the care sector which is inextricably linked to freeing up hospital beds and reducing intake.

At what point will the immigration regulations be revisited?

Couldn't find a thread on here specifically about climate change and COP 26, so am posting here an approximation of a comment that I just came across about the way the talks are going. 

It goes something like:-

 "Am trying to stay positive and look on the bright side by telling myself that my grandchildren will only have to drive as far as Chorley for a day at the seaside...."