A divided party won the local elections

Labour did well in the local elections. Being hopelessly divided on big issues did not stop its success.  Its former leader remains banished. Some of the Corbynites remain on the Labour benches arguing for more Corbynite policies. The party is deeply split over the Hamas/ Israel war with some wanting a much tougher anti Israel line and some worrying about anti semitism . It is split over the Reeves wish to follow OBR austerity economics. There are many keen promoters over a speedier path  to net zero shocked by the dumping of planned public spending to try to up the pace. All those who want to nationalise much more and tax much more are kept quiet or played down.

I point this out as a minority in my party argue that if all Conservative MPs supported everything the government does we would jump in the polls. They say divided parties cannot win. So how did Labour manage it? How did Margaret Thatcher pull off 3 great wins, when the Wets as they were then disparagingly called tried to undermine her continuously?

The way to win is to govern well. It is to allow robust debate about issues, policies and out turns. A leader needs to listen, adopt the best ideas, and be prepared to make the case for his choices.

To win Rishi Sunak needs to get legal migration well down, cut taxes for all, curb excessive public sector losses, recapture lost public service productivity and resolve public sector strikes.

 

145 Comments

  1. Mark B
    May 7, 2024

    Good morning.

    You can’t polish a turd. But, despite this, as Mayor Khan has proved, you can easily buy them with their own money (raised from ULEZ Funds no doubt).

    1. Ian wragg
      May 7, 2024

      Liebour won because if we’re going to have socialism we may as well have the real thing.
      Fishy repeatedly saying we have a plan and it’s working won’t cut it.
      Taxes are going up again to a 80 year high and the cretin on the Kuensberg programme was defending the government on immigration. It’s all lies and the voters know. Let’s have 5 years of awful Starmergeddon rule and a tory wipeout to really build back better.

      1. Hope
        May 7, 2024

        JR,
        As Guido points out today former Tory minister Nick Boles- the woke pro EU type (who helped back stab Johnson to get May) is a Labour advisor and introduced Reeves today!

        The EU one nation lot in your party is clearly aligned to Labour policies without any distinctions. I would not worry about slating Labour because the difference is so slight, Lord Slim Cameron hired many former Labour ministers instead of true conservatives. He is back at the helm wasting our taxes like no tomorrow. As pointed out by a Republican Senator, what audacity Cameron had asking for money from US for Ukraine when Cameron cut defence spending and cosied up to the pandas when PM! Beautifully put. We remember the perfectly new Nymrods jets being cut up by mechanical diggers behind screens! We also remember how Cameron was considering French planes for our aircraft carriers!

        Your nutty govt. still aligning and acting in lock step with EU. As pointed out by bloggers here inter connectors with France for electric, what could go wrong! Even Sunak recognising he is going to lose. Time is up. Get out

        1. Bloke
          May 8, 2024

          Andrew Marr on LBC asked Anneliese Dodds to confirm that Natalie Elphicke had not been offered a peerage as part of deal to secure her defection to Labour. She replied ‘Absolutely not!’. How could she possibly know unless the offer of a peerage had been raised, or if Keir Starmer had made the offer without informing her? Similarly, she would not know if the present PM had offered Natalie a peerage as one of his many mythical ‘effective long term plans’ to swing an outcome that nobody expects. The present PM is too out of touch and incompetent to conceive such a ruse, but Anneliese can’t even know about that peerage possibility either.

    2. Ian B
      May 7, 2024

      @Mark B – he keeps blackmailing Sunak and keeps winning. Private transport is just a side show the general taxpayer keeps giving him money.

      1. Mickey Taking
        May 7, 2024

        ‘Giving?’ — daylight robbery would be more accurate!

      2. Hope
        May 7, 2024

        It is impossible for Sunak or Hunt to win an election. No one trusts him or Hunt. No one voted for him.

        No one voted for his five pledges instead of the manifesto he promised to implement, in any event he failed. He lies.

        Sunak declared he was the son in law of India! Sunak sent steel making there. India uses coal fired power stations, why not here after he promised to frack to get elected? Sunak and Hunt sends jobs and manufacturing to India and China! India persecute Christians, Sunak still aligned himself to the country!

    3. Ian wragg
      May 7, 2024

      For 3 days now wind has been generating 2gw or less
      Today we are Importing 23.4% of our electricity at premium prices and you expect to get re elected.

      1. glen cullen
        May 7, 2024

        …and losing 95% of the local/mayor/police election means nothing to Sunak ….no plan to change

    4. a-tracy
      May 7, 2024

      You can polish a turd. Khan and Burnham proved this.

      The conservative central office needs to invest in messaging; whoever Sunak engaged to do that is failing. His preference for slick campaigning isn’t hitting home, and the party needs to get over just how much they are spending!

      Who knows how much has gone on levelling up and who has been responsible for spending that money, mayors? councils? because can anyone suggest what improvements there have been?

      Who knows how much extra has gone on pupil premium, arts and creative subjects in secondary schools? To listen to the press and tv media you’d believe its gone in reverse.

      Labour is promising 1.5 m homes, it doesn’t say where and who will get them? How many have this government paid for in the past because I know homes england is financing building in my area but you wouldn’t know about it in the local press? We seem to have a lot of new migration to our area are they being given all the new social rentals and affordable rentals over the heads of people on waiting lists for over 5 years struggling in high rent private tiny terraces?

      The local newsletter printed by the Tories doesn’t speak of what’s been done in the past five years and how you’re building on that. It claims taxes are cut but all the papers and media say that was cancelled out with fiscal drag on personal allowances and that has negated everything Hunt has done on NI for workers.

      Pensions are up year after year but to listen to some pensioners you’d think they were worse off than the previous years even if they are paying tax on their private pensions it is 20% of the new gains not 100%. You wait till Labour are elected and they put NI on your pension over the pa.

  2. DOM
    May 7, 2024

    I couldn’t care less if Labour retake the reins of power and finish their 1997 plan to rip apart this nation. As a believer in democracy I endorse whatever the voter decides. If they choose self-destruction then so be it. We saw this rank ignorance in Germany, 1933. We’re seeing it again.

    We can all see what the problem is and but the majority fail to understand who is to blame and why they are to blame. John has the platform but never sheds light on this. Unfortunately, it can be argued he’s part of the problem if he isn’t prepared to expose those responsible both in Labour and in his own now compromised party.

    ‘We’re going to rub the right’s nose in diversity’. Nine words that destroyed the Tory party. That’s how morally and spiritually weak every Tory MP is

    1. Lifelogic
      May 7, 2024

      Some truth in this though I do not blame JR. Given FPTP voting he is doing all he can.

      JR says:- “To win Rishi Sunak needs to get legal migration well down, cut taxes for all, curb excessive public sector losses, recapture lost public service productivity and resolve public sector strikes.” But he also need to ditch or at least suspend net zero, reverse the woke lunacy, have a bonfire of red tape, relax employment laws, relax planning, get fair competition in health care, broadcasting, banking, insurance, transport, schools
stop blocking the roads, cancel ULEZ, admit the vaccines were very dangerous and did net harm
U turns on very topic is what is needed Sunak.

      He says the elections were “disappointing”. We are heading for a hung parliament he says! Suank are heading for richly deserved total destruction of the party for many terms if not for ever mate. This against rather appalling opposition. Did you ask the same duff statistician who told you that the vaccines were “unequivocally safe” Rishi? Unsafe, ineffective, vastly expensive, not needed for most people (even had they worked) – and did net harm is the reality mate.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 7, 2024

        “A divided party won the local elections” indeed and one with a dire record at local government and appalling policies at national level – the same ones as Sunak but even worse with their two policies of attacking private schools and ditching non dom status both with raise nothing and far do more harm than good.

        1. Hope
          May 7, 2024

          LL,
          Come on. Wake up.

          The little Usurper was not elected by his membership, they rejected him and Hunt who have the two top jobs gathering other non Tories like Dowden in cabinet and remain adamant big state high tax, high regulation and EU is the way forward!

          It should not be a surprise that those members who voted against his backstabbing, against him, his views no his policies will come out to vote him because he claims there is a slight difference between him and Starmer who both agree to be ruled by the EU, WEF, UN and WHO! Sunak asked the nation to judge him by his record over a year- he failed. Sunak said he would implement 2019 manifesto, he lied and made up five points of his own and failed each. We voted to leave theEU. Sunak refuses to deliver. Sunak has acted in stark contrast to leave the EU giving away N.Ireland but willing to waste our taxes fighting for corrupt Ukraine! Cameron now pledges ÂŁ3 billion a year! Yet no money for tax cuts!

      2. Peter Wood
        May 7, 2024

        Actually it’s a bit ‘easier’ than your list; ALL the PCP needs to do is what was IN THE LAST MANIFESTO…. Those were largely conservative principles, they are not being implemented now and don’t ever look like they will be. My point is, the PCP does have a workable, agreed plan; there is no need to be divided and run around making up new ‘plans’ on the hoof.
        Sadly, I think it is all too late now..

        1. Lifelogic
          May 7, 2024

          And at least ditch Net Zero!

      3. Sir Joe Soap
        May 7, 2024

        Yes, but delusion still sweeps the Tory party clearly. Why on earth don’t they just split themselves into Reform and Libdems ? At least that would be being true to themselves rather than this pretence and delusion which the electorate now sees through.
        What I wonder does our host think that sunk would do differently with another 5 years ?

      4. Ian B
        May 7, 2024

        @Lifelogic – it is not the voting system, its the candidate selection system that is the drag on democracy. FPTP would in a democratic society would always be better, as all the alternatives leave the minority choice with all the power.

        1. Lifelogic
          May 7, 2024

          Well with FPTP you often cannot vote as you wish without totally wasting your vote. Look how few voted for the sensible Howard Cox. They knew that the best chance of removing the dire son of a bus driver Khan was to Vote for the pleasant but tedious & second rate Tory Candidate. As she had so many always have always will voters many perhaps over 75 and not changing politics now.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            May 7, 2024

            With PR you vote as you wish and ALWAYS waste your vote, because the political class has every excuse to ditch all manifesto promises when the horse-trading happens after the election, to decide who and what has been elected.

          2. Ian B
            May 8, 2024

            @Lifelogic – the smaller partner, the least liked by the electorate party dictates the direction the government or they walk, just look at Cameron with Clegg. Socialist appeasement to be able to call yourself PM, although Cameron then as now is more at home as a LD

        2. Lifelogic
          May 7, 2024

          Direct democracy is the way to go and with IT it is easy to do. What is the point in a vote every five years for the least bad of two or three candidate who once elected will not do as promised anyway? They promise lower taxes, better living standard, lower immigration, law and order and better public services in general & yet invariably deliver the complete opposite.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            May 7, 2024

            You going to put in the hours JR does to work out how to vote 12 times a night?

        3. forthurst
          May 7, 2024

          If you want to understand voting systems I suggest to check out the Electoral Reform Society website in which the inferiority of FTPT is clearly exposed for lack of proportionality, voter choice and local representation.

      5. Mike Wilson
        May 7, 2024

        No one is voting Labour because of the vaccines. Just no one. Not one single person.

        1. Lifelogic
          May 7, 2024

          Indeed as labour would have been even worse in Covid as they showed.

          But saying “unequivocally safe” was as moronic and evil as saying we are heading for a hung parliament or they have cut taxes! Unless Sunak is really that ignorant and stupid – but surely not!

      6. Lynn Atkinson
        May 7, 2024

        You want Mayor Khan’s party to hold the balance of power over the whole U.K. in very quick order?
        Do you understand why the Russians are saying that in the west (when they admired it) the majority ruled via democracy. Now it’s minority rule by the collective groups (the party machines who choose who sits in Parliament) that undermine democracy.
        Abandoning FPTP would be the final nail in the coffin of democracy. That would remove all hope of ever recovering our country, our home.

      7. Wanderer
        May 7, 2024

        LL I agree, except for your list of things Sunak needs to do to win. In my opinion he can’t win, whatever he does.

        The important voters are those who swing. A lot of these voters don’t think too hard…if their lives are getting worse, they blame whoever is in power and vote for the apparent diametric alternative. This has meant switching between Tory and Labour. Many voters have next to no interest in, or knowledge of, the Parties’ policies. They won’t be found on blogs like this.

        If only one Party other than the Tories ran at the next election, and it had no policies at all, it would probably win convincingly!

        1. Lifelogic
          May 7, 2024

          He cannot win without changing nearly all his policies and cannot do that as he will look like the fool he is. Plus more tory MPs are lefty green crap twits too. But kicking him out is better than not doing so. A new leader can at least suggest a more sensible direction.

    2. Michelle
      May 7, 2024

      I don’t see it as a fair democracy though when non-citizens can vote in our elections just by virtue of being part of the Commonwealth. Especially when there are no reciprocal rights. As for London and Khan, even though the turn out low, demographics in that city now and ease of voting for non-citizens, was always going to see him secure another term in my opinion.
      Neither is it right that so many have and will be given citizenship, and will therefore vote according to their desires to change things for their in-group. This is leading to political parties pandering and forming policy based around who of the minority groups shouts and threatens the loudest.
      Many can also return to their homeland if it doesn’t all turn out as they wanted, leaving us with the fall out.

      As for those who will be voting Labour, yet are moaning about mass immigration, crime, the changing face of our towns, their children being indoctrinated with LGBTQ++ I just cannot even be bothered to enter into conversation with them anymore and I care not one jot what happens to them.

    3. Ian B
      May 7, 2024

      @DOM – when there is only a choice of high-spending, high-taxation left wing parties the centre ground of UK Society is disenfranchised. If there is no one you can vote for that shares your beliefs, primarily because the the appointment of candidates are ‘controlled’ from a few WEF Socialists instead of those that a candidate would wish to represent – you are set adrift and democracy dies.

      1. John Hatfield
        May 7, 2024

        Ian, when the media, particularly the BBC, fail to acknowledge the existence of alternative parties they have no chance.

        1. Ian B
          May 8, 2024

          @John Hatfield – the main impediment to democracy comes from the mountain of money and organisation pumped into a constituency to support candidates that were appointed outside of a constituency. Or in other words the system is tilted against constituents fielding the best candidate to represent them, your candidate is chosen by a gang leader who demands personal support before constituency or country.

    4. Everhopeful
      May 7, 2024

      This has all been in the pipeline for years now.
      Left wing entryism aided and abetted by left leaning “conservative” leaders.
      A form of self criticism that might have landed anyone else in big trouble 
”The NASTY Party”
      Oh why oh why did members and MPs even allow that?? ( It sounds like something much worse!)
      Self flagellation
for what?
      The utter destruction and vilification of any party right of Lenin also hampered them.
      Left = “good” Right = “bad”. What a stupid route to take
redefining politics in terms of morality
having destroyed Christianity of course.
      Encouraged by Labour to destroy our lives with lockdown
well Labour would wouldn’t it?( Corbyn said tories could not be trusted with our human rights)
      But maybe it was all “not accidental”.

    5. formula57
      May 7, 2024

      @ DOM “We saw this rank ignorance in Germany, 1933” – no we did not for recall the Nazi party received less support in the election than it had on the previous occasion and a well-known personality was only appointed Chancellor through Hindenburg using presidential powers.

      1. Mickey Taking
        May 7, 2024

        …and he didn’t care with only a short time to live. The candidate appeared to want the best for W.Germany/Austria.

        1. Mickey Taking
          May 7, 2024

          …and only days after the Reichstag (arson)fire.

    6. a-tracy
      May 7, 2024

      People forget it as a choice of New Labour – after 1997, to engineer mass immigration. Former Labour adviser Andrew Neather notoriously said this was a policy devised to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’ – that is, to change the UK’s ethnic make-up as a taunt to Middle England.

      Civil servants crow about how easy it is to scuper the Tories attempts to control migration. With left wing charities and human rights activists and lawyers earning their living off defying the elected government and nothing has been done to stop them.

    7. Lynn Atkinson
      May 7, 2024

      You misunderstand the problem facing German voters in 1933. Their main parties had joined – the left moved right and the right moved left. Familiar? They had Hobson’s choice and disliked the option, so they were FORCED by the main parties to vote for Herr Schicklegruber.
      You saw at the local elections last week, British voters forced to vote Lib Dem/Green/Reform because their two main parties have ‘joined’ and present no alternative policies.
      The People are seldom wrong, they respond rationally to irrational options presented to them.

      1. hefner
        May 7, 2024

        On britannica.com see ‘Germany from 1918 to 1945’ for a more detailed timeline, particularly what happened between the elections of May 1928 and those of May 1933.

    8. Dave Andrews
      May 7, 2024

      When it comes to blame, it’s the voter that carries the can. Socialist policies have come to the fore because people have voted for it. We have a ballooning national debt because the people vote for jam today, screw the kids.
      There are no decent candidates for any election because sensible people don’t run for politics. The only choice we get are activists with qualifications in political subjects but little real world experience, who compete with each other on how much spending they promise.
      A country gets the government it deserves.

    9. glen cullen
      May 7, 2024

      As I’ve always said – its better to be stabbed in the front than in the back

  3. Peter
    May 7, 2024

    Labour was the beneficiary of a huge reaction against the Conservatives. It’s not the case that its own policies were particularly attractive to the electorate.

    It’s too late for the Conservatives now – divided or presenting a united front.

    The magnitude of the defeat in the only unknown.

    1. Everhopeful
      May 7, 2024

      +++
      The Tory leadership could not have tried harder to bring this about!
      United in support of Labour maybe?
      But then
some of them call a particular ex Lab PM “ The Master”
I mean
how utterly childish!
      Has he actually been the PM all this time?

    2. Bloke
      May 7, 2024

      Calling the present PM a ‘leader’ is misleading in itself. A leader needs followers. The vast majority learnt from bitter experience that this PM is a dead weight, dragging the country down ever nearer to the bottom of the bottomless pit.
      Labour are now pulling many voters who prefer to tolerate the risk of a less worse idiot, albeit reluctantly. The majority want immediate Conservative reform, or pure Reform with Nigel Farage.

    3. Lifelogic
      May 7, 2024

      What is the point of being united behind Sunak’s duff socialist policies they are nearly all 180 degrees out. We want and need Ben Habib type policies – far less government, far lower taxes, bonfire of red tape, ditch net zero, freedom of choice and free and fair competitor on a level playing field between state and private provision in transport, schools, energy, housing, healthcare
 not rigged markets.

    4. Lifelogic
      May 7, 2024

      +1 what an appalling waste of the 80 seat majority.

  4. Javelin
    May 7, 2024

    What lost the election is the Conservatives spending ÂŁ14 billion a year (a conservative estimate) according to Andrea Jenkins. This figure is likely much higher and the real figure is higher than the entire NHS budget.

    This is why the public are sick to their back teeth.

    Reply ÂŁ14 bn on what?

    1. Old Albion
      May 7, 2024

      Illegal immigration.

      1. Hope
        May 7, 2024

        Once they stop being illegal i migrants they become welfare claimants. Let us have the actual figures by ethnicity/nationality how much legal and illegal immigrants cost us in welfare. The stats must be there. Same for crime same for NHS use, same for education, same for social housing.

        Sweden has started to produce crime figures from this group. Horrendous!

    2. Everhopeful
      May 7, 2024

      I think she was talking about illegals per year.

    3. Ian wragg
      May 7, 2024

      Immigration.

    4. Ian B
      May 7, 2024

      @Reply – how would anyone in this Conservative Government know, they claw the money in then juts throw it away – they refuse to manage

    5. mancunius
      May 7, 2024

      Reply to JR’s reply: AJ has claimed that illegal migrants are costing ‘at least ÂŁ14bn per year’.

  5. Peter
    May 7, 2024

    Perhaps Lifelogic will be along in a moment to say Sherelle Jacobs is surely correct in today’s Telegragh?

    ‘ Those who believe in the “wisdom of crowds” might also well wonder whether Tory grassroots have developed a powerful intuition that the party will have to be pulverised almost to the point of obliteration
’ seems an accurate assessment.

    So does the idea that Cameron’s Wets will be the small band remaining after the defeat.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 7, 2024

      She is indeed right.

      More depressing but also right is the article.

      Oxford’s new chancellor must not be woke
      Recent protests underline the importance of leadership. Yet the selection process has all the hallmarks of being a stitch-up.

      Surely not someone even worse than BBC favourite lefty Lord Patton perhaps someone as dire & appalling as Stephen Toope that Canadian Lawyer Cambridge suffered under. A man who wanted to force people to “respect” peoples deluded & mad opinions. Tolerate perhaps but forced to “respect”?

  6. David Andrews
    May 7, 2024

    Both Labour and Conservatives are divided. Labour won the locals because they could blame the Conservatives for years of misrule and waste. Why should former Conservative voters turn out to vote for a party that failed to deliver on key manifesto promises, screwed up Brexit and imposed stupid NZ commitments that were not in its manifesto. Cameron, May and Johnson each contributed in their own ways to their party’s decline and fall. It is beyond redemption. I expect Labour to be even worse in power.

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 7, 2024

      A bit like feeling threatened by a nasty dog, it may just bare its teeth rather than sink them in something tender!

  7. Everhopeful
    May 7, 2024

    Has mass immigration done Labour more good than it has done the tories? Did Labour import votes?
    Apparently now in addition to other disagreements there is a Labour split over gay issues.
    Plus a lot of people really do believe in “rubbing noses in it” even though a Labour govt. will be Tory with bells on.

  8. BOF
    May 7, 2024

    All vestiges of democracy have been ripped from the hands of the people by LibLabConGreen following the path and policies dictated by foreign entities like UN, WEF. Soon we will be under the thumb of WHO when the new pandemic treaty is agreed!

    No wonder they do not turn out to vote.

  9. Old Albion
    May 7, 2024

    Good try Sir JR. But a Conservative claiming Labour are hopelessly divided!
    Before removing the speck from thy brothers eye, first remove the plank from thine own.

    1. hefner
      May 7, 2024

      OA, +1

    2. Bill Smith
      May 7, 2024

      well said

  10. Sea_Warrior
    May 7, 2024

    Few people watch PMQs and even fewer watch either Departmental Questions or Ministerial Statements. The No 10 press briefing room’s podium is under-used. Ministers should be spending more time there to give explicit, detailed analyses of the problems they are tackling. Mordaunt is right: the Conservatives’ communications is, shall we say, less than impressive.

  11. Cliff.. Wokingham.
    May 7, 2024

    Sir John,
    It’s not just the Labour Party that’s divided. The whole country is divided.
    Anybody who has watched the news channels over the last week or so, couldn’t fail to think the country is getting more like the wild West.

  12. Michelle
    May 7, 2024

    There is a general consensus it seems to me as I’ve been reading around a broad range of comments sections, that the Conservatives have lied once too often to the electorate and treated their natural supporters concerns over many issues with such contempt, that even one vote for them is more than they deserve.
    In essence they see the Conservatives as a continuation of Blair. They should have cleared out all traces of his wilful damage to this nation, instead they’ve doubled down on it.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 7, 2024

      Yes Nick Gibb told me when Blair was beaten by the Tories that all they could do ‘was deliver Blair’s policies more efficiently’. He told me the restaurants in London were full to bursting – he was not interested that all the celebratory spending was on credit.

  13. Nigl,
    May 7, 2024

    Yes. Spot on as ever. What they are really saying is ‘any of you disagreeing with our policies, be quiet because we like them’ (HOL/Ks, here I come) and demonstrates how out of touch they are in their bunker. ‘It is not us that’s wrongit is everyone else’

    I agree with your solution but too late, you haven’t time. Sunak has dissembled on belief in lower taxes, they are up, reforming ECHR not a chance, getting inward migration down, Suella Braverman has exposed that ‘lie’. Reform of financial services reducing regulation, look at how our stock market is shrinking, burdensome red tape despite BS to the opposite, interfering in the buy to let market, and so it goes on.

    We also hear Central Office are interfering in candidate selection to get ‘social democrats’ despite local organisations wanting people who they know will be successful with their constituency voters. ‘Please help us with getting voters out but we will ignore your views’ . You couldn’t make it up.

    Divided party. No. A proven ineffective Prime Minister captured by the centre out of touch with his core vote and not trusted.

    Look at why Reform has risen. I rest my case. Looks as if your sole message will be ‘a vote for Reform let’s labour in’

    Do I care no, they are in already.

    Public sector performance down,

  14. Roy Grainger
    May 7, 2024

    I don’t think Labour is really divided on a lot of those issues like Gaza, it’s just that some of them say what they believe and Starmer and the rest say what they don’t believe because they think it will get them more votes. Same on economics, they are all Corbynites really but some of them pretend not to be.

    “To win Rishi Sunak needs to …. cut taxes for all …”. But the Conservatives definitely are hopelessly divided on that issue – Hunt doesn’t want to cut taxes, he wants to increase taxes but by freezing thresholds so the tax rises are hidden. Ditto corporation tax, he is opposed to cutting it. He also wants to withdraw benefits, specifically the pension which he wants to make means-tested.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 7, 2024

      Sadly they are not Corbynites it’s on his single most important policy – Brexit.

  15. Narrow Shoulders
    May 7, 2024

    Labour did not increase its vote – the share maybe but not the vote.

    Conservatives stayed away because there was no least worst option to vote for.

    Those stay aways need to be given a none of the above option on the paper to bring them out to vote.

    Let’s see what the winning candidate and party has to say when no one polls better than they do.

    That will change the attitude towards the voter. Nothing else.

  16. Michelle
    May 7, 2024

    I’ve also noted as I read around that many Labour supporters/activists, are claiming it is the culture war the Conservatives are waging that has led to many of their supporters staying home.
    The culture wars were started by Blair and continue within Labour. It is a war against our culture, history, heritage and becoming more vicious toward us and more open. The latter I’m glad of as more people will then see what lies in store.
    Mass immigration and particularly of such opposing cultures into such an old and settled nation was and is a war upon that nation and its culture. Particularly when various laws are passed opposing the right to speak freely on the issue. What is DEI if not a culture war?
    I think possibly Labour are now afraid of people losing their fear to speak out on it, and so are trying to give an impression that it is of no consequence and all in the mind of ‘white supremacists’.
    Naturally the Conservatives will dance to Labours tune, instead of reminding the people who it was that turned this once settled nation upside down.

  17. David Cooper
    May 7, 2024

    “To win Rishi Sunak needs to get legal migration well down, cut taxes for all, curb excessive public sector losses, recapture lost public service productivity and resolve public sector strikes.”
    Indeed, but on his past record, ever since Liz Truss was hounded out, the PM gives no sign of being either willing or able to do anything meaningful about any of those five issues, nor indeed about equally important affronts such as Net Zero implementation, hardcore wokery, hate marches and double standards policing. As matters stand, his programme of managerialist decline under a pale blue banner will continue until replaced with an even worse programme under a deep red banner.

  18. Everhopeful
    May 7, 2024

    I don’t actually think that Labour is the party of the left any more.
    Obviously Corbyn ( a Corbyn stretch might have been a better option
forcing tories to the right?) has been jettisoned and apparently Tory fiscal policies are favoured plus other policies like dropping the financial commitment to “climate boll*cks” that have led dyed in the wool socialists to leave.
    Maybe that is why “the blob” or Davos or whoever is actually in control ( an ex lab PM ?) is totally relaxed about the tory dissolution.
    One step nearer a one party state!
    One step nearer Big Brother
aided by us poor sheeple who can’t see the wool for the trees!

  19. Sir Joe Soap
    May 7, 2024

    The point is that the Labour party are at one with the country in knowing that the Tories have performed appallingly over 14 years.

    To be clear, the Conservatives CANNOT WIN. You’re misguided into thinking anything but that this ragbag will be consigned to history. For goodness sake, join an alternative outfit which IS united and represents your beliefs! To recap the reasons that the Conservatives cannot win

    Cameron-called referendum, lost, ran away then welcomed back. Par for the course.
    May-Hopeless, terminally hopeless.
    Johnson-Brexit promises betrayed and hypocritical actions in locking down when he knew no problem
    Truss- elected democratically then spat out by MPs
    Sunak- placeman, out of touch, out of time

    1. Mitchel
      May 7, 2024

      When I think of Cameron- and I try not to -Napoleon’s public remark about his erstwhile foreign minister,Talleyrand,comes to mind:”A silk stocking filled with s***”.

      (To be fair to Talleyrand,while an untrustworthy intriguer,he was a very capable diplomat).

    2. Mickey Taking
      May 7, 2024

      I am reminded of Rolling Stones.’Out of time’ 1966.
      I said, baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
      Yes, you are left out
      Out of there without a doubt, ’cause
      Baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
      You thought you were a clever girl (clever girl)
      Giving up your social whirl (social whirl)
      But you can’t come back and be the first in line, oh no
      You’re obsolete, my baby
      My poor old-fashioned baby
      I said, baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
      Well, baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
      I said, baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
      Yes, you are left out
      Out of there without a doubt,

  20. Linda Brown
    May 7, 2024

    Too late now but you should have kept Boris. What a silly lot you are. Put some good people like yourself around him doing the work and let him loose in the country to entertain us and be the charismatic leader he is, and was. What stupid people you lot are. Now you have a booby, he will lose big for you and just jet off to California and not suffer the consequences that we will with the riff raff he will leave us with. Thanks very much. I don’t know why you still support them personally but keep doing it as if you go there is no hope.

    1. Everhopeful
      May 7, 2024

      +++
      Totally agree!
      He just needed a few sane mentors.

      1. Mickey Taking
        May 7, 2024

        You seek them here, you seek them there, those damn elusive mentor Spads.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      May 7, 2024

      Johnson was the worst PM we have ever had and hopefully ever will have. We will be paying for him for generations.
      I would vote for Starmer, and certainly Corbyn (right about Brexit and no war with Russia) in preference to Johnson.

  21. Robert Pay
    May 7, 2024

    Agreed. Appalling as the Conservative Party has been it needs to announce its targets in the area you specify and face down the civil service. There is really no debate on these topics which is why people vote for a party likely to be worse on all of them. For once, the government needs to have bold policies and stick by them – a shame they have waited so long. The outcry will be awaken people.

    The media (BBC in particular) seem to have an agenda to talk us into an election. (It worked almost every time to oust ministers and prime ministers, even when the debate was largely manufactured.)

  22. Ian B
    May 7, 2024

    Sir John
    The only rational is that the abstainers won the election
    Labour numbers barely changed, the LibDems received a few protest votes, Remain also received a few protest votes. The Conservatives disenfranchise the centre ground, so there was no one for them to vote for.
    Sticking with the centre core of the high tax, high spenders and calling themselves conservatives is a sure fire way to ensure, no guarantee there wont be another Conservative Government.

  23. Mickey Taking
    May 7, 2024

    Sunak cannot win the next GE whatever he does, short of walking to Westminster from his constituency just wearing a loincloth and sandals, bearing a wooden cross.
    His support for nonsense organisations, policies and economic theory has condemned the Party to ridicule and disarray. Goodbye and good riddance.

  24. GaryC
    May 7, 2024

    “To win Rishi Sunak needs to get legal migration well down, cut taxes for all, curb excessive public sector losses, recapture lost public service productivity and resolve public sector strikes.”

    Labour wouldn’t have stood a chance if that had been done years ago instead of going woke and bickering between themselves.

  25. glen cullen
    May 7, 2024

    Armageddon in the middle east, foreign states hacking our utilities & military, eastern europe at war 
.voters turn their backs on the socialist woke conservatives who adopt green left laissez-faire policies
    I do not agree that the parliamentary party is divided 
maybe the members party but not the parliamentary party; that still supports net-zero, state subsidy, state control, immigration and international treaty & rule

  26. Everhopeful
    May 7, 2024

    If a party were strongly united ( and were democratically minded) it might just be able to pass laws untying its hands from inherited acts ( like May’s Climate Act).
    And actually do Brexit!
    I was naive I had no idea MPs would work against the people’s wishes.

    1. glen cullen
      May 7, 2024

      Please Please do brexit

  27. Keith from Leeds
    May 7, 2024

    The Conservative Government and Party’s problem is simple. They have alienated their natural supporters by pursuing policies that are not conservative, vastly overtaxing people and businesses, with the evil freeze on tax thresholds the perfect example of how to upset all voters, not just conservative ones.
    We have a weak Chancellor who does not attempt to cut Government spending, supported by a weak PM who equally does not seem to grasp the massive waste in Government spending, then gives money to charities and Quangos who oppose Government policy!
    The only ray of hope is the turnout, which was down in many places because conservatives stayed home. A GE is much more serious and conservatives will vote in that.

    1. glen cullen
      May 7, 2024

      Spot On Keith

  28. formula57
    May 7, 2024

    The need to “govern well” was being pointed out to Johnson at the time he was ceaasing to be the people’s Blue Boris and in all the years since has been variously repeated. Will its last shout come as we enter week three of the general election and Sunak and his rotten cabinet are assured they can still turn things around?

    1. glen cullen
      May 7, 2024

      Boris did a great speech outside No10 when he won the election, then he slept and woke up ‘green’ ‘woke’ & an ‘EU/UN’ lover

      1. Mitchel
        May 7, 2024

        Don’t they all!See also Giorgia Meloni.

        The system shall prevail…..
        ……until it collapses.

        1. glen cullen
          May 8, 2024

          Yeah …she was the great reformer …than she wasn’t

      2. Mickey Taking
        May 7, 2024

        Covid and then brainwashed, never to recover.

      3. Everhopeful
        May 7, 2024

        It is said that some men don’t think with their brains!

        1. glen cullen
          May 7, 2024

          I’ve heard that ……maybe witchcraft

        2. Mickey Taking
          May 8, 2024

          On some subjects men don’t tend to think at all!

  29. Rod Evans
    May 7, 2024

    The record of contempt for the electorate this administration has shown is now being reflected in the ballot box Sir John.
    We voted to leave the EU and its bureaucracy control, we have not come close to doing that in over eight years of asking you.
    We wanted the crime wave destroying our city centres to be sorted out and the criminals jailed, they continue to do as they please and people are victims of police and judicial inactivity.
    We wanted our infrastructure maintained to an acceptable standard. We got HS2 two Aircraft Carriers that do not work and roads that are almost impossible to drive on without damaging our cars and vans.
    We wanted balanced migration. We got uncontrolled mass migration and open borders.
    We wanted energy security. We got energy importation and massive increase in extension cables plugged into the EU.
    The list goes on and on. That is why Labour won the vote, they might be hopeless but all evidence shows the voters the Tories have proved they are completely hopeless.
    The loss the Party is likely to experience this winter( my Party) is going to be historic.

  30. Original Richard
    May 7, 2024

    It is true that Labour is “hopelessly divided” and it is quite possible that a large section of Labour MPs will split off or at least follow the policies of other groups such as the Greens (aka Reds) now that this grouping appears from the recent council elections to have taken on Greta Thunberg’s latest anti West issue.

    However, fortunately for Sir Keir Starmer, should he become PM, he knows that for the important issues of following OBR/Treasury financial policies, closer EU relations, increasing mass immigration and ramping up the economy destroying Net Zero Strategy he will be able to count upon the support of the remaining Conservative MPs as these MPs will have been the ones parachuted into the safest of Tory seats by Lord Cameron when PM.

  31. Nigl,
    May 7, 2024

    And in other news a massive data hack at the MOD. Mel Strides excuse is that it was a third party site, who cares if it’s your personal information given away and the Government moved quickly to resolve situation.

    What are they going to do, ask nicely for the files back unread. What a ridiculous set of answers.
    As ever the key question. Why did it happen in the first place and yet again why does HMG act after the event and think that is acceptable? Obviously we know the latest example of why people view Ministers/public sector with such cynicism.

    Maybe HMGs war on encryption because it curtails/prevents their big brother ideology might change when they accept that they are putting their own/our security at risk.

  32. Bill Smith
    May 7, 2024

    Sir John,

    It is all too late and your proposed solutions will make no difference we have lost faith in you and your party

  33. Michael Saxton
    May 7, 2024

    The way to win is to stick to the election manifesto and remain true to Conservative principles. Provide working people and their families with cheap energy, low interest rates, a functioning NHS, good educational opportunities and low levels of crime. Keep well clear of overseas conflicts and stop being the obsequious puppet of dangerously flawed policies pursued by American war hawks. Start concentrating on our people, we are a small nation still with considerable potential, reduce legal immigration and stop ALL illegal immigration.

  34. JoolsB
    May 7, 2024

    You are preaching to the converted here John. We all know Labour will be an absolute disaster for this country, anyone who aspires to do well, anyone who lives in a big or expensive house, anyone who works hard, will all be hit severely in the pockets, much more than now and that’s saying something. Immigrants will be welcomed in with open arms, (again, a bit like now) the more the merrier. Illegals will be given automatic amnesties, problem solved. The Muslims in the party will come out of the woodwork and demand sharia law. We will be taken back fully into the EU not that we ever properly left it.

    Your party and your party alone are totally responsible for the nightmare that is about to hit us. There is no love for Labour but there is a real loathing for Sunak and the fake One Nation Conservative Party. If only they had been proper Conservatives instead of the big state, high tax, pro EU, pro mass immigration, pro net Zero, pro the balkanisation of England party they really are.

    The party is filled with one nation wets still John, they weren’t just in Mrs. T’s time, and it shows they are even more deluded fools than we thought if they think all they have to do is unite behind Sunak and carry on the way they are going. I’ve campaigned and voted ‘Tory’ all my life but like many have been disappointed time and time again since Major onwards. No more. You are in the wrong party John as are a handful of others. Instead of putting party first, you should think about putting country first and the handful of you that are true Tories should move over to the real Conservative Party REFORM and put the rest of the fake Conservative Party out of it’s misery.

  35. Bryan Harris
    May 7, 2024

    Labour didn’t win, their policies had nothing to do with it, it was the conservatives that lost.

    This should come as no surprise, as so many ex-tory voters had promised to withdraw support.

    Does Sunak have the will to listen to what the people want, to keep the Tories in power?
    I think not, for there are many things he could have done, but he stuck to his destructive policies that nobody has ever voted for.

    Looking at all the oppressive laws and treachery from the Tory governments over the last few years, it is likely they will never again regain power, but that doesn’t mean labour are better. They will win by default.

    That so many people did not vote at all demonstrates the sorry state of democracy. People’s wishes are ignored, while the big 3 follow the same programs.

  36. mancunius
    May 7, 2024

    To win an election, Rishi Sunak needs to convince that he actually cares about this country, its individual character and its past, about which he appears to know nothing, and to care even less.

  37. JoolsB
    May 7, 2024

    So Sunak says it could be a hung parliament and Labour could be propped up by the SNP. David Cameron said after the last independence referendum “The voices of England must be heard”. Why John, after fourteen years and a quarter of a century of asymmetrical devolution which discriminates against every man, woman and child in England, have your party chosen to ignore the West Lothian Question. Why does your party hate the hand that feeds it, ENGLAND, so much?
    We are told Labour can’t win without Scotland. If only your party had sought to address the English Question and deliver a modicum of fairness to the country you rely on for your votes.
    You reap what you sow but unfortunately it’s us English who must pay the price yet again.

    1. Martyn G
      May 7, 2024

      England – the only part of the UK that cannot, must not be spoken aloud in Parliament.

  38. THUTCH
    May 7, 2024

    Yes of course he needs to do these things. But there is not time and, as Peter points out, only the magnitude of the defeat is unknown. Too many of your MP’s are not even conservatives.

  39. Original Richard
    May 7, 2024

    O/T if I may please :

    The latest hack, allegedly by China, of an MOD database or the database of an MOD supplier, shows just how exposed we will be to hostile attack when the DESNZ’s Net Zero Strategy achieves its goal to electrify everything from energy infrastructure to appliances with computer control through smart meters and ESAs (Energy Smart Appliances).

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 7, 2024

      Who needs to send a massed army all the way to Britain? Just cyber cripple everything you can…..easy peasy.

      1. glen cullen
        May 7, 2024

        Just flood the place with foreign students

  40. William Long
    May 7, 2024

    The Labour party has the great advantage that although it comes in varying shades of red, it can be relied upon to deliver the horror it promises on its tin. The Conservatives were elected on one manifesto, that appealed to a wide section of the electorate, and then proceeded to deliver something very different, which could quite easily have come from its opponents. As a result, and not surprisingly, nobody trusts them.

  41. Christine
    May 7, 2024

    This is what happens when you get elected on a manifesto and then proceed to deliver the opposite.

    Here is a list of what was in the 2019 Conservative manifesto:

    Get Brexit done – failed – we did not vote to have a border down the Irish Sea, continue to implement EU rules, give away our fish.

    Safer Streets – failed – knife crime is at an all-time high.

    Strengthening our NHS – failed – waiting lists are even longer but we have lots of new diversity managers who improve our health not one jot.

    No income tax, VAT or National Insurance rises – but you introduced other new and increased taxes.

    No one will sell their home to pay for care – failed.

    Reach net zero by 2050 – without agreement, you brought this forward to 2030 when the infrastructure and science weren’t available.

    Control means that fewer lower-skilled migrants will be allowed into the UK – Massive fail – immigration is at an all-time high.

    £2bn to fill potholes. – Massive fail – our roads have never been so bad.

    Is it any wonder voters have become disillusioned with your party and will not believe any future election promises?

    1. Ian B
      May 7, 2024

      @Christine +1 – its called socialism, keep the people in line, under control and dependant. then you take all the tax you want as no one gets to care where it goes.

    2. Lifelogic
      May 7, 2024

      +1000 a freeze on threshold is an increase in income tax, NI, tax on pensions and IHT so failed on that to.

      They are (moronically) still trying to deliver on the bonkers war on CO2 (the gas of life) though. Thanks to May, Sunak and Carrie Johnson.

  42. Lynn Atkinson
    May 7, 2024

    That programme would win the election Sir John, maybe with an 80 seat majority or more.
    They need to start before the election. They need to cut taxes dramatically, the destruction of capital has been devastating so the abolition of CGT and Inheritance tax would send a signal that work and prudence pays.
    These young generations are depressed before they even start life. They have no hope of ever owning a home or business, so they fritter their money away consoling themselves. Our young men have no hope of having and caring and providing for a family. Children now cost ÂŁ220,000.00 to raise to the age of 18. They feel redundant!
    The young generation self-harm, tattoos and all sorts of addictions, many never get the education that would set them free because their school caters for the native speakers of 18 or 20 different languages. So precious little time educating our children.

  43. a-tracy
    May 7, 2024

    Central government big funding is around ÂŁ430 billion.

    Health ÂŁ179.6bn [is that the ÂŁ34bn pa more that Boris promised in 2019, if so you wouldn’t know it, its as though less has been spent because the unions are thwarting the patients.] Also where health is devolved the Tories still get the blame, yet aren’t waiting lists down to the local devolved areas like Wales, Scotland, N Ireland, Manchester? These were easy targets yet they were avoided in Manchester where all health & social care issues that were the responsibility of Burnham just weren’t discussed – worst waiting lists in the Country. Suddenly a year after a new government is elected all the problems will disappear.

    Education ÂŁ84.9bn, [since 2017 we’re funding schooling for all up to 18 or apprenticeships – you wouldn’t know it]

    Defence ÂŁ32.8bn, [all we hear is Ukraine, you’d think defence spending had fallen listening to Wallace and commenters on here, so what is the truth? The messaging from central Tory office is rubbish]

    1. Ian B
      May 7, 2024

      @a-tracy – defence spending is on the administrators and anything peripheral, it is not on the front line guys, those that get to risk their lives on behalf of all of us. They get hauled across the country housed where the criminal asylum seekers refuse to go and then get charged for it.

      1. a-tracy
        May 7, 2024

        Ian I just tried to find how the Defence budget was spent as I don’t know.

        UK parliament said “In the 2023/24 financial year, the UK spent ÂŁ54.2 billion on defence. This is expected to rise to ÂŁ57.1 billion in 2024/25, which is a 4.5% increase in real terms. As a member of NATO, the UK is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence expenditure that meets NATO’s definition.”

        How much of that ÂŁ54.2 bn is spent on Admin.?

        I read that in 2022/23 MOD expenditure on equipment was ÂŁ24bn (MOD Annual Report and Accounts).

        1. Ian B
          May 8, 2024

          @a-tracy a chunk of that is what we give to the Ukraine, helping them is considered UK Defence. By admin I refer to the MOD itself, now not far off the same size as the amount of men the UK can field on the front line.

          1. a-tracy
            May 9, 2024

            I didn’t know that figure included the amount we give to Ukraine, Ian.

            Do you believe that technology has replaced some of the human force? Drones, lazers,

  44. a-tracy
    May 7, 2024

    Education & Early Years, here was the promise:

    Increase spending on schools to level up per pupil funding to ÂŁ5,000, as already announced.

    Back school heads and teachers on discipline – including by supporting the use of exclusions.

    Expand “alternative provision” schools for children who have been excluded.
    Offer an “arts premium” to secondary schools to “fund enriching activities”.

    Raise teachers’ starting salaries to £30,000.

    Review the care system to make sure children get the support they need.
    Establish a ÂŁ1bn fund to help create more high quality, affordable childcare, including before and after school and during the holidays.

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 7, 2024

      What ‘comic’ did you read that from? Fairy stories amuse, don’t they!

  45. Bert+Young
    May 7, 2024

    I agree with Sir John ; leadership and government are key links and establishing priorities has to be done in 10 Downing Street . Opinions from all sources must be taken into consideration but when records show that some persistently get it wrong there is little point in continuing them ; the BoE is the main offender and the OBR another . There is some hope left for the Conservatives but it rests in re-establishing a programme that re-connects with the broad range of voters ; stimulating industry and commerce are key , equally lowering the burden of taxation and ridding the country of Illegals are others .

  46. Ralph Corderoy
    May 7, 2024

    The day after the elections, two men were sat nearby in the pub. About 70, they looked Old Labour. I overheard them talk about how Starmer was only there to win the election and would be soon overthrown once in power. That was their hope. Who knows, perhaps new ‘evidence’ or ‘lived truth’ will come to light about a beer and curry during lock-down. Though I can’t see the papers latching onto that and stoking up a furore.

    1. Mike Wilson
      May 7, 2024

      What? It’s unthinkable to keep changing prime ministers.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      May 7, 2024

      Yes, that was the strategy once before, think Macintosh/Livingstone. They got someone the electorate would never have stomached.
      Mind you Sunak was EXPLICITELY rejected by his own party.

      1. Ralph Corderoy
        May 9, 2024

        Lynn’s referring to Andrew McIntosh, later Baron McIntosh of Haringey, and Ken Livingstone, ‘Red Ken’, and the leadership of the Greater London Council in ’81. (In case others didn’t know of the putsch either.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_McIntosh,_Baron_McIntosh_of_Haringey

  47. Clough
    May 7, 2024

    Don’t ‘create division’ by going for a change of leadership is Sunak’s last-ditch line of defence. He has nothing to offer, and nothing more to play for except hanging on to his London home as long as possible. I couldn’t vote for a party led by that man.

  48. Original Richard
    May 7, 2024

    “To win Rishi Sunak needs to get legal migration well down, cut taxes for all, curb excessive public sector losses, recapture lost public service productivity and resolve public sector strikes.”

    Mr. Sunak also needs to cancel Net Zero or cutting taxes, improving the economy and preventing energy and military insecurity will be impossible.

    It is time that the Government instructed our state broadcaster, the BBC, to stop the illiberal suppression of alternative views to theirs on CAGW and Net Zero. With the way the BBC is funded and with 70% of the UK population using their services it is an abuse of power and a national disgrace that such censorship exists in a country that believes itself to be a democracy.

  49. Derek
    May 7, 2024

    The PM is in danger of losing his seat, yet he does nothing to act as the old Tory supporters wish. To maintain a lemming-like approach to very unpopular polices is stupid and arrogant. To contend that economic policies are working when it’s clear the electorate are suffering from them is as signing the death warrant for the Party at the next GE.
    It’s considered brave to remain firm in purpose, but ridiculous when your policies will be overturned anyway by Labour within the next year.
    Your only hope is to change direction now and adopt the principles proposed by your predecessor. Or suffer dire ignominy real soon.

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 8, 2024

      ‘he PM is in danger of losing his seat’
      Oh how I wish.

  50. Vic Sarin
    May 7, 2024

    Overall the gains by Labour were large, and expected. The general public are generally fed-up with political figures in general and the Conservative Party in particular. The local results in Wokingham are worth examining. Overall, the Lib Dem’s (sadly) did well.
    It was very noticeable however that they failed in Finchampstead, principally I suspect because of their refusal to acknowledge the opposition to the current development of California Crossroads- they carried on regardless
    Political figures of all parties should take note
    Don’t treat us like fools.

    1. Richard II
      May 8, 2024

      Yes, sitting LibDem councillors David Cornish in Finchampstead, Chris Johnson in Spencers Wood, and Andrew Mickleborough in Hawkedon failed to get elected this time. It wasn’t altogether a good result for the LibDems. Residents are starting to wake up to what the minority regime ruling party at WBC has been doing with the power it took over two years ago.

  51. Mike Wilson
    May 7, 2024

    Our useless voting system will give Labour a landslide without them needing any extra votes. Tory voters will abstain in droves. Who could actually bring themselves to vote for a Tory candidate after the track record of the last 14 years.
    I usually vote Green in the hope of keeping the environment on the big parties’ agenda. I had no idea the main parties were going to swallow the net zero nonsense so completely. We might as well have Caroline Lucas as PM.

    1. a-tracy
      May 8, 2024

      Track record in the last 14 years? Really!

      The Tories managed to get re-elected twice in that period, the last time with a massive majority until Boris was removed, since Sunak took over, put in place by MPs not the membership he has lost over 40 MPs!

      However, lets think about some of the good things achieved because no-one seems prepared to speak about them.

      1/ Help to Buy ISAs created by Osborne in 2015 topped up by the government aka the taxpayer by 25% allowed young people to get on the housing ladder at a time when the Tories held down mortgage rates below 2% for over 13 years, historically the lowest ever (amazing how they get the blame for those rates rising but not for holding them down lol). These were replaced with LISAs from the age of 18 you can now invest up to ÂŁ4k pa, and the government tops it up to ÂŁ5k (25%).

      2/ The Pupil premium introduced by the Con/Dems. Provided to English schools since 2011 to help overcome socio-economic segregation between schools, and reduce the poverty attainment gap. We keep hearing about London children going to the best universities as a result of this, what are the actual achievements of this big spending? I read England went up the PISA attainment rankings. Gov.uk says “Inspectors found an association between the overall effectiveness of the school and the impact of the pupil premium. In the sample of 151 reports, gaps in attainment for pupils eligible for free school meals were closing in all 86 of the schools judged to be good or outstanding for overall effectiveness.”

      3/ Toynbee tells us today in the Guardian that pensioners have done well out of this government, “fewer of the old are poor than the general population… The old are also the wealthiest – –reaping unearned bounty from house price inflation, blocking the young from buying” Does the next government “dare skim property wealth from the old to fund universal social care”

      4/ Harris indicates the government has succeeded in getting people to spend less on beer, meat, and recreation. He mentions Thurrock Tory council wasting money but does not mention the many local Labour councils with their daft investments, such as Warrington. We really do need to know the truthful figures of money spent on local councils.

      The Tories seem to have given up; I e-mailed my MP and suggested he not vote for Sunak, and he did, then promptly said he would be standing down, like some sort of lock-step dance into oblivion.

  52. glen cullen
    May 7, 2024

    396 crossed the channel over the bank holiday weekend, I think the media has given up reporting the issue !
    Could anybody explain Sunaks defination of ‘we’re stopping the boats’ means ? Maybe he was only talking about ‘boats’ and not ‘immigrants’

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 8, 2024

      I think if pushed he will say but we have stopped boats, dinghies are still assisted across.

      1. glen cullen
        May 8, 2024

        clever man that Sunak

  53. Iain gill
    May 7, 2024

    People are simply not voting. Normal people have given up on the political class of all the main parties. We are not being governed by consent, we all think that the system stinks, and the quality of our politicians is terrible.
    We can also see that largely the public sector is driven by fashion, it does what it wants regardless of politicians.
    People are not going to put up with our country being destroyed indefinitely. Any straw could break the camels back, and it won’t be pretty.
    We are in uncharted territory.
    We are not just negotiating with the enemy, we are actively handing them power.
    The bubble doesn’t understand.

    1. a-tracy
      May 8, 2024

      PCC Election locally. For such an important role only 20% of the public bothered to vote. ÂŁ95,000 job + exs & allowances.

      The public that don’t vote deserve what they are going to get by the end of the year.

      1. iain gill
        May 9, 2024

        I refused to vote for PCC. The only people on the ballot paper were standing for the main 3 parties. None of them were saying anything of substance different. None of them had delivered leaflets etc. They were all identikit modern politicians, with zero substance, and same world view. Completely pointless exercise. And Chief Constables are well versed at ignoring them now anyways, the role is a complete waste of time.

        1. a-tracy
          May 9, 2024

          Our PPC locally has changed this time after years with a Tory PCC to a Labour PCC it will be interesting to see if there is any difference by the end of this term.

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