A recent poll puts Labour down to 27% from their poor election showing of 34%. It puts the conservative opposition on 48%, split between the Conservatives on 27% and Reform on 21%.
The large Labour majority on a reduced vote share from Jeremy Corbynâs was only possible because many conservative voters felt let down by the Conservative Party, staying at home or voting Reform.
Labour has lost support rapidly. It has revealed a wish to tax people and businesses excessively which it concealed pre election. It has found governing extremely difficult and has impaled itself on the freebie row
As we are likely to have four more years of this government this site will concentrate on what the government is doing and how it can serve us better. There will be jostling between Conservatives and Reform over who can best oppose which will delight the government, hoping to be re elected with less than a third of the vote and less than a fifth of all electors. Those who are primarily interested in the Conservative/Reform struggles should go onto their sites to debate. I will not usually be posting Reform criticisms of Conservatives or Conservative criticisms of Reform.
Any airtime Conservatives or Reform get should concentrate on what the government is getting wrong and what it can do to improve. There can only be a different government when enough Reform voters back the Conservatives or enough Conservatives shift to Reform.
This site all the time we had a Conservative Party government concentrated on the government and how it needed to change policy. It rarely commented on how the Opposition did its job.We need an opposition which can combine well researched criticisms of government actions and results with a better vision of how the U.K. could benefit from policies that promote freedom and prosperity.
This site is mainly about the conduct of government and the evolution of policy.
October 23, 2024
Reform can’t be ignored. Like it or not they have become the real opposition
This government is a disaster enabled solely due to the not so conservative last government reneging on every manifesto pledge
We’re just going to have to fasten our seat belts and ride out the political storm.
Maybe the faaaaar rite ie the majority of normal people will have to man the barricades.
October 23, 2024
Ian, Reform does indeed need to be acknowledged, especially by the Tory leadership. A sensible election campaign strategy that avoided competition between Reform & Conservative would smashl Labour (& other small parties). Once a new Tory leader is in place they should talk to Farage & co.
October 23, 2024
Indeed Jenrick is basically pushing a reform agenda after his Damacine conversion. It seems however that Kemi is virtually home and dry.
“Any airtime Conservatives or Reform get should concentrate on what the government is getting wrong and what it can do to improve”
Well this government is getting all the things the tories got wrong for 14 years but even worse. Imigration levels, tax levels, energy, net zero, the size of government, rigged markets, lockdowns, crony capitalism, HS2, road blocking, the net harm Covid Vaccines… Labour is basically the Gove socialist Tory agenda.
October 23, 2024
I do hope you are right. As the Conservatives vanish into the far right wilderness, led by the nose by Mr Farage, the country will be governed by Labour or a Labour / LibDem coalition for many years ahead. Badenoch or Jenrick, it doesn’t matter, we all recognise that Nigel decides, and the Tories follow. Thank you so much for vacating the centre ground
October 23, 2024
A deal between Reform and the Consocialists is essential for power before the next election. Sunak should not have thrown the towel in six month early and should have done a deal with Reform for an election that should have been this November. Alas the man is so dim he even thinks (or lies) that Covid “vaccines” were/are safe. The evidence & worldwide is overwhelming they are/were not
October 23, 2024
I can understand the dilema of the rump parliamentary conservative party who I have always described as consocialists. A void has opened between their past benign opposition called the labour party, up to july 2024, and what is the real labour party without camoflage netting of today.
The conservative electorate have realised that what posed as their party up until july 2024 was not what they understood to be conservative in any shape or form. Hence their failure to vote at all or their voting for reform. The residual consocialists amongst them showed their disdain by voting lib/dem.
Now in terms of an opposition we have a consocialist rump, about to be led by a Robert Jenrick who has rediscovered conservatism and can identify all areas that have gone wrong. He is now espousing solutions. The alternative is to be led by Kemi Badenoch who realises that the problems facing any future UK government are much more fundamental, involving the very structure of the machine of government. I believe she sees it as having gone very wrong irrespective of party politics. I would be with her in the membership vote were I qualified. Either will find the battle within their own parliamentary party the greatest challenge.
Thanks to first past the post, reform are thin in Parliament but greater than the lib/dems in terms of electoral votes. They are sensibly building within the electorate until they reach that tipping point to power.
The current government are espousing the reform case enormously in all they do. The opposition to them will arise from within them when it is realised that there is little cake left to eat. With such a large majority, outside opposition however accurate will have little resonance with them. Fortunately it will build real opposition within the electorate who will increasingly dismiss them over the next four years. Unless the IMF get them first.
Pointing out labours sins in this diary is fine, they are becoming all to obvious to us outside already. However wishing to ignore everything else in gestation on the political battlefield by not allowing comment on it would be a big mistake. The electorate are feline, and you can no longer hurd cats.
October 23, 2024
The fact is Sir John we were completely failed by 14 years of Conservative administrations. Administrators that were definitely not conservative. This failure was much more than simple feelings this was plain fact. We were failed on both domestic policies of which immigration, Brexit and NHS dominated and foreign policy with too much slavish adherence to ideological aspirations of neocons in the US State Department. Now weâre lumbered with a radical bunch of utterly incompetent Labour Ministers most of whom have never had a proper job in industry or started their own business. Most have never employed anyone or indeed been responsible for managing large groups or teams of working professionals. And they are led by an arrogant chameleon whose personal greed and sense of self importance has cast a black shadow over his first 100 days in office. Hereâs a man who previously supported every one of Jeremy Corbynâs radical hard left policies including making every possible attempt to frustrate Brexit. Like Corbyn his roots belong in hard left dogma and he is clearly very authoritarian. The long drawn out Conservative leadership contest will hopefully determine whether the Conservative Party will return and reclaim Conservatism or whether theyâll remain essentially in the centre left of politics? Until we know the direction of travel we cannot properly make a valid judgement. I remain pessimistic.
October 23, 2024
Not just failed for 14 years the Consocialists lied in four manifestos but then delivered the reverse of what was promised. They did not even try to deliver. May even gave us the insanity of Net Zero, highest taxes for 70 years, 1m + PA of immigration mainly low skilled, crime out of control, public services dire, on Covid everything was wrong, vast waste, vast corruption and crony capitalism.
October 23, 2024
Yes, Starmer should have a great deal more analysis, we really didn’t get a full picture of him and his ‘ideas’ prior to the election despite the efforts of Peter Hitchens, who looks like he got the profile spot on.
Was Starmer hiding in plain sight, we just didn’t see the nuance? Blinded by the need to remove the despicable PCP. When Reeves spoke about fiscal responsibility and creating a growth economy, almost stealing Tory party of old rhetoric, were we all fooled? I was. Are the plans now being activated, based on years of preparation and kept hidden? Where are we going? That’s hard to believe given the inability of politicians on the make to keep a valuable secret.
October 23, 2024
Let us face it. The Conservatives were a very bad government but Labour is a far worse government.
Conservatives broke every promise they ever made and Labour told bare faced lies to get elected.
Seeing photos of Mr Gates and Mr Fink visiting No 10 begs the question. Who runs the country? For years we have watched as policy cooked up elsewhere becomes law here so until we are rid of LibLabCon we can expect no different.
God forbid that this rotten tyrannical government will be in place for another four years.
October 23, 2024
There will be those on both sides of the « Conservative « fence who object to being lumped together with Reform or The Conservative Party. At least we know what Reform stands for an believes in, which is why it grew overnight from a tadpole to a whale, whilst the Conservative Party shrivelled from a shark to a shrimp and the Conservative leadership is now going to be decided by less than 150,000 people.
October 23, 2024
I read today that Labour may count spending on asylum claims as part of the foreign aid budget rather than paying for it in addition. If true it’s odd that Labour should implement a policy to the right of anything the Conservatives managed in 14 years. They have also of course implemented off-shore processing in St. Helena for asylum seekers pitching up in Mauritius, again a general policy the Conservative MPs never managed to implement or even wanted in many cases. This demonstrates your somewhat false equivalence between the Conservatives and Reform, as if somehow they are both options for right-wing voters who will switch between them, in fact many Conservative MPs would far rather align with the LibDems than Reform. But anyway I agree that they should concentrate on attacking Labour, however the Conservatives are more interested in their internal battles and haven’t laid a glove on Labour since the election.
Reply The Conservatives did charge as much of the asylum budget to overseas aid as the international definitions allow. Labour is adopting Conservative policy here. Sending people to St Helena was I think ruled out on cost grounds by the previous government as there would need to be expensive new housing and facilities for any meaningful numbers.
October 23, 2024
“We need an opposition which can combine well researched criticisms of government actions and results with a better vision of how the U.K. could benefit from policies that promote freedom and prosperity.”
Indeed we do. And those who aspire to replace this government will need to make it clear whether they intend only to manage its legacy regime better, or scrap it to a major extent and begin governing from fresh principles. The first approach would leave the ratchet effect of socialism (hat tip Enoch Powell) untouched; the second would anticipate dismantling and possibly reversing the ratchet.
October 23, 2024
I see no opposition to this government from the Conservative party or Lib Dems, probably because they share the same policies of net zero and mass immigration. Only the few Reform MPs fight for the future of our country. There’s no point supporting either of the two current Conservative leader contenders because they will rule a split party and will be incapable of enacting any changes just like Liz Truss. I will be concentrating my efforts over the next 5 years on getting more Reform candidates elected, as I see this as the only solution to save our country. I’ve always enjoyed reading the views of contributors to this site and wouldn’t welcome restrictions on their input, but it’s your site, so you can mould it to your ideal.
Reply I will be following the same path as during the last government. I did not then start a large debate about the Opposition parties but concentrated on what the government should do better and was doing wrong. Reform and the Conservatives have to sort out how they oppose together or apart mindful of how a split opposition helps a bad government. By all means engage them on their sites over this.
October 23, 2024
It’s clear Starmer and his government have decided to not play the populism game – they have been elected to govern and that’s how it’s going to be – straight talking – straight doing
October 23, 2024
The next election is going to be so predictable. The Tories will be screaming âA vote for Reform means a Labour governmentâ. Reform will be pleading âA vote for the Tories means another Labour governmentâ. A deal must be done. But it wonât be because of the pig-headedness and arrogance of Tories. You can hear it now: âWe will not do an electoral deal with anyoneâ – which means âwe prefer the cushy life of oppositionâ
October 23, 2024
“There can only be a different government when enough Reform voters back the Conservatives or enough Conservatives shift to Reform.”
Or if the parties reach an accommodation which means they don’t challenge each other in the areas where one clearly has far greater support and could beat Labour if they had a clear(er) run at it.
The Establishment Parties are not interested in policies which increase freedom and prosperity. This has certainly been true of the Not-a-Conservative-Party for the last 30 years, since Mrs Thatcher was deposed so that the Establishment could install a PM who would sign away our independence with the Maastricht Treaty, and was never made clearer than the reaction to the EU Referendum vote to restore our Sovereignty.
Very few in the small number of MPs left actually supported LEAVING the EU, although a slightly number could claim to support Brexit, which isn’t the same thing at all since the “deal” they supported means we are in effect an associate member of the EU.
Establishment Parties which pursue mass immigration of 3rd worlders/poverty and intend to impose the economy-wrecking Net Zero are not interested in prosperity and will be unable to implement any policies which will improve GDP per capita.
Since they have no intention of changing those policies, the only meaningful discussion is how to rid ourselves of the Establishment Parties …. which is what is now going on across the country.
October 23, 2024
I often think the opposition should do more to expose how government policy affects the individual citizen, rather than vague harms they do to the wider country.
Take Net Zero as an example. Talk about it hurting GDP, or causing “de-industrialisation” all sounds rather vague to the average citizen. Saying it costs ÂŁ100bn or whatever is also meaningless (all we hear about are billions nowadays spent on this or that).
Much more effective is saying what it costs each household or citizen and a simple explanation of why, since many think solar and wind power are free of cost.
I think the Party that relentlessly exposes the cost of policies to the individual will do well at the next election, if it has a decent set of proposals to improve things.
Of course it not all about costs. Relating cause and effect on the individual can be used to highlight the problems of many other aspects of public service/government responsibility .
October 23, 2024
The Conservative party is a contaminated brand. Whoever is elected it’s new leader has a huge task on his/her hand to decontaminate its thinking and deal with those in the party and parliament who do not share his or her new thinking. How that plays out will influence the policy responses offered to the electorate and to challenge the government. While there will be overlap between Conservative and Reform thinking and proposed remedies there will also be differences, some possibly radical. These seem appropriate areas for debate.
October 23, 2024
The Conservatives and Reform must come to some accommodation. With either of the two candidates, there wonât be a much separating the two parties in philosophy or policy. But if they remain hostile, Labour will win again and the country will become Venezuela.
October 23, 2024
There appears to be know way back when the Faux Conservative Parliamentary Group is fighting within itself for continuity, more of the same. They refuse to own their failings.
” As pointed out by Lord Ashcroft KCMG, and his market research is usually spot on.
Why did the Conservative Party lose the last general election so heavily, and what must it do to recover?
The Tories failed to deliver on their promises in crucial policy areas like immigration, tax and public services. They did not act like a competent government. They too often behaved as though there was one rule for them and another for everyone else” (Sounds familiar!)
https://conservativehome.com/2024/10/22/lord-ashcroft-the-conservatives-need-a-leader-of-rare-quality-for-me-thats-kemi/
Continuity is signing off on failure with more failure to come. Even Conservatives within the Party have a fight on their hands (The Split) One candidate talks like a Conservative but people aren’t sure, but those that are Conservative have come out in favour of. The other is 100% Faux, says what it is believed wanting to be heard, pure ‘One Nation’/Liberal Democrat in that sense.
CCHQ has a lot to answer for in excluding Conservative Candidates from standing, only those the One Nation/Liberal Democrats got near the ballot papers.
October 23, 2024
I understand what Reform are saying and believe they speak with honest Conservative intentions – but are they Conservative? Or are they another grouping thinking they are saying what some wish to hear.
For now the ‘None of the Above’ are winning. Wasted vote? how can it be when the majority of the Nation has been disenfranchised by having a WEF Socialist UniParty as their only option.
This labour Government is only continuing the last administrations direction just with more ideological conviction and vigour. More Tax, more borrowing, less spending control is some how thought of as the meaning by the word Government. We have not seen a ‘Conservative’ this Century