A caning for Rishi's Rabble yesterday!
I accept 101% that it's not unusual for results like this to happen "mid-term" in a government's tenure, and I'm by no means getting carried away, coz..............
We're (at least) a year out from a general election, and a lot can happen in the interim, but............
Is the end of the blue faction in Downing Street finally on the horizon?
Spelly.
I think the next GE will be a hung Parliament. Because I think Labour will make gains but it's a lot to make up, probably too much.
I find it interesting that Tories are saying that Rishi is now getting it right, they were convincing us for years it was right before. The Johnson (years) and Truss (weeks) now seem to be fair game amongst their own party even though they were complicit to the damage whilst it was happening.
In short, I think Labour will win but not well enough. And hung Parliaments always mean dodgy deals.
I don't really think much will change under a Starmer Labour anyway, we've missed our chance for real change.
We need to move to proportional representation, it's much fairer. Of course, no sitting Govt would endorse it, why would they? We need a cross-party committee that sits above Govt to look at the bigger picture. Otherwise, we continually lurch from left to right every 10 years with no real strategy.
We need to move to proportional representation, it's much fairer. Of course, no sitting Govt would endorse it, why would they? We need a cross-party committee that sits above Govt to look at the bigger picture. Otherwise, we continually lurch from left to right every 10 years with no real strategy.
I've argued for years that "10% of the votes should mean 10% of the seats." But as you say, it's not gonna happen, and we're stuck with the "First past the post" scenario, that dates back forever.
Spelly.
Nobody will bother voting no way am I taking id to vote along with a hell of a lot of others a complete shambles. People hardly voted and now even more won't be arsed because of this.This time they cannot blame EU regulations.
@mick-george Serious question. Why?
They're not asking people to spend a fortune on some new high tech I.D., rather just bring some existing, to stop voter fraud?
Is your passport, driving licence, bus pass or blue badge etc. that hard to take with you? Which part of that is 'a shambles'? Bizarre attitude IMO.
Voter apathy I understand to a degree, but not for this reason. The only person to blame for not voting is yourself. We all have a choice to do or not to do it.
Voting fraud really nobody hardly votes let alone fraud all big brother conspiricy. People need be encouraged to vote not resricted. Yes it is a shambles for older people who do not have a passport etc they have to go on line and process proof , oh hang on they don't have on line access, there lieths the problem. Before you knock an opinion at least weigh up the odds and learn the facts.@mick-george Serious question. Why?
They're not asking people to spend a fortune on some new high tech I.D., rather just bring some existing, to stop voter fraud?
Is your passport, driving licence, bus pass or blue badge etc. that hard to take with you? Which part of that is 'a shambles'? Bizarre attitude IMO.
Voter apathy I understand to a degree, but not for this reason. The only person to blame for not voting is yourself. We all have a choice to do or not to do it.
There is next to no (literally next to none) voter fraud in this country. Never has been. The whole idea is to keep people from voting and, the people deterred usually come from a specific demographic. You work it out.
Which demographic is it... & more importantly why does it stop them voting?
How many people don't have 1 form of the acceptable I.D? There is next to no-one (Literally next to none). If you're an 'older person' (your words) then you will have a bus pass which counts as I.D....
Also people shouldn't need to be encouraged to vote. You should vote IMO, but you're either bothered or you're not about it.
If you have no interest in politics, or don't know about any policies/candidates etc. why should you "be encouraged" to vote on something you know nothing about?
Nearly everyone has ID. It's not just the lack of ID that stops people voting, it's the fact that you now need to produce it. This is a generation of people that decry certified vaccines and think they're their own boss yet walk around with a GPS tracker and audit log in their pockets that anyone can access. Tell them they need to swipe to vote and they think it's something to do with Area 51 and Bill Gates. My own bell end nephew is one, as soon as he heard he needed to prove who he was to vote, he swerved it.
This move is very clever piggy-backing on the post-Covid control bandwagon. Why are older person's bus passes acceptable forms of ID but younger person's/student bus passes aren't? They're not going to spell it out for you. They know this will keep some people away and they know how those people would likely have voted.
The UK electorate was encouraged to engage in a vote that they knew nothing about, and were duped into, in 2016. And we know how badly that has gone for most of us. Thanks to social media, it is easier than ever to herd people to where you want them to be, this is another example of that. This isn't a conspiracy, it's a very clever manipulation of the fact that most people are malleable and easily persuaded. Modern politics. Blair started it, the tech has taken the current Govt to this point.
Votes are too important to be left to people's own choices, surely you know that?
You must believe that Execs at Sainsburys or B&Q or wherever sit down and strategise as to how they can increase their revenue. Why wouldn't Govt ministerial depts do the same? And why wouldn't they come up with something that they thought might alienate people who weren't about to vote for them? They're not going to sit by and see what happens, this is 2023, no-one does that.
@gpo1971 You make some good points, but others contradict it.
What other important things do you do that you need I.D. for though? I've said for about a decade you should need I.D. to vote. If people make the choice not to vote because someone asks for I.D. , that's not the governments fault that's the bellends (Your words) for choosing it. It's not an onerous ask.
Also we didn't have a local election this time, but I assume they just check your name and face against it? Not like they record it, or take a copy? Plus for council tax etc. they will have your details anyway, unless you're doing something underhand?!
100% agree about Brexit. I get your point about it improving the current government, but it doesn't need to alter it a jot if others weren't idiots. These will be a lot of the same people who vote for whoever a celebrity tells them to vote for anyway, rather than knowing their own minds.
But for people who are precious about identity protection, more so for those delusionals who think they are able to protect their identity, it's a reason not to vote. The Tories haven't been particularly clever about a lot of things over the past 13 years but this is an example where they have been. It's either prevents people from voting or gives people a reason not to and, the likelihood is, people in both of those camps wouldn't have voted Tory anyway. No loss for the Govt.
The other area they have been smart, borne out of austerity, is scaling back Local Govt grants. Central Govt no longer gives Local Govt anything like what they used to in terms of grant money, this was reduced massively by George Osborne in 2010. It has served to deflect blame away from Central Govt, who are actually making the cuts, and directed anger at Local Govt, who are left to pick up the pieces by finding cuts from other areas. Halton Borough Council probably see at least 50% of the money they used to and the money has to be found elsewhere, council tax raises, service cuts and planning applications, and that just pisses locals off.
Halton Council spend 91% of their money on social care, that is the highest across ALL Local Authorities in the UK. They could spend less and fill more potholes and empty bins more often but then people who need care would go without. Personally, I think they direct the money wisely. But, obvs, it attracts a lot of grief.
It's 2 different issues though.
Personally I think you should need I.D. to vote & I don't think it will prevent (Actually stop, not chose not to!) many people from doing so.
The government isn't stopping people from voting, it's just the nutters choosing not to.
I haven't seen a reply but what actually happens at the polls now? I'm assuming you just show your passport/whatever to the election officer and they go "Great it matches up here's a voting slip?", rather than taking any details down?
That's the bit I really don't understand. They don't want to show I.D. that matches up to what they already know anyway??
The rest seems sensible, and again comes down to what we should/shouldn't do with money. The social care is a very complex problem, and shouldn't be anywhere near as bad as it is. Bed blockers/lack of funding in other areas etc. etc.