Dr Gloom

exactly and this is why the polls point to Tory annihilation. You can’t keep lying to the public and get away with it when they’re getting hit in the pocket

that's why they're so fucked. truss tanked the economy with the ridiculous mini budget and increased everyone's mortgage repayments. people aren't going to forget it and they can't get away with blaming ukraine or covid this time

corbyn was as bad as johnson. i blame them both for where we ended up. and cameron, obviously.

yeah, Johnson knows a lot of socially conservative Labour voting brexiters lent their vote. The Tories are not winning these voters back anytime soon.

They voted to “get Brexit done”. Johnson got in mostly because people were fed up with talking about Brexit and he was promising to get it sorted and end all the division while levelling up. He also won because Corbyn was the alternative. He wasn’t offering anything on Brexit and doesn’t sing the national anthem.

Also people didn’t really know what they voting for on Brexit. If Cameron had negotiated an emergency break on immigration with the EU we probably would have got away with it. That’s what it was ultimately about, really. It should never have gone to referendum, let alone a binary in/out one. The Brexit vote showed the public wants more control on immigration (another reason the Tories are fucked). There’s nothing wrong with that and if doesn’t mean they would elect a far right government. I think the majority are too sensible/boring

there was a nationalist/racist/hard right support for Brexit, of course. A lot of people don’t like how immigration has changed communities. For a lot of people it was a protest vote against the establishment. For some it was patriotism, nostalgia, a longing for something from the past, which was somehow better than the present. I think the UK is a quite conservative country, and by that I mean conservative in the traditional sense of preserving values/way of life etc, which is why the Brexit vote was so remarkable, because it upended everything in a way most people weren’t prepared for. People were lied to and duped, unfortunately. But we’re much more likely to vote for centrists to govern the country than parties on either extreme of the political spectrum - particularly after the experience of the past few years. Voters are yearning for a return to boring normality. Starmer knows this.

disagree. the majority want boring/sensible centrism and improving living standards

have you seen the latest polls? last time the tories worked strategically with the brexit party. reform are not being as helpful this time. they want the one nation tories out. they've already pulled them to the right but their job isn't done yet. if they are successful and some of the more catastrophic polling for the tories comes to pass, we could see the Lib Dems as the new opposition. i think this scenario is farfetched but reform could fuck them if the progressive parties form an alliance and people do vote strategically. what if labour then governs from the soft right, as you suggest? what does the future look like for the tories with kemi badenoch, suella braverman or nigel farage as leader? this country will never elect a far right party, just as it will never elect one from the hard left.

They're on to their third PM of the term since the Brexit deal was agreed, so we weren't that far off. Brexit destroyed the tories, possibly forever

Yeah, nice one strawb 👍🏼

sigh was life in the uk better or worse under blair and brown than it has been for the past 14 years under the tories? they were also "soft right" flag shaggers

i'm moderate left and i'm voting labour. let's see if they make life better or worse after the next election. i will be amazed if they govern from the soft right, as you put it.

you're talking about Brown losing in 2010? that one was cyclical. people were ready for change and the tories successfully weaponised the global financial crisis. i can't blame brown too much for that. he got his chance at the top job too late in the end and he was always a bit too dour and a bit too scotish, despite doing some really good things as chancellor and pm (notably leading the world out of global financial meltdown) miliband fucked it in 2015, i agree. there was space then to oppose austerity and he bottled it. so much of it did hinge on his failure to eat a bacon sandwich and his apparent lack of a personality though - such a shame because he has shown he is a funny likeable bloke in the years since. it's sad so many politicians are scared to show their personality when they have one. the truth is though that elections are won in the centre. it's once you win power that you can move to the left and actually change the country for the better. i get why he isn't saying anything right now but i'll quick to judge him if he is chicken shit once he's in downing street too. the labour party has always been a broad church and i wouldn't say you're not welcome. but owen jones and the rest, who are only happy when throwing grenades at the leadership when we're finally on the brink of victory, can see themselves out. if they'd rather try to derail things than try to positively influence future policy then just fuck off.

exactly. owen jones and co are welcome to piss off and form their own meaningless reform-style party for the hard left where they can all sit in a circle and talk to each other about their principles. they had their go running the labour party and they fucked it. let the grown ups win power and start the slow process of rebuilding the mess the tories created in the last 15 years.

some people call it flag shagging. to others, it's called winning

that’s the precisely the shit that he needs to do that Corbyn couldn’t bring himself to participate in, because he was so “principled”/unelectable . The culture wars are all the Tories have left. Would you rather he didn’t shag flags and we gave the Tories an open goal? In the scheme of things, who gives a shit whether he plays the game so floating voters think he’s patriotic?

Biden had a good four years and improved the state of the country. The Dems need another four years to embed a lot of the green transformation he introduced through the IRA. He showed how you win elections from the centre without over promising when you’re up against a divisive and unlikable opponent. Unfortunately his ego to be a two term president has fucked them. He’s too old and doddery for it and voters don’t want him. He should stand aside for a younger candidate to run in his place and they’d win but I fear you’re right about trump.

And if that isn’t enough, he’s thinking of car boot sales, t-shirts and maybe a benefit concert

they haven’t really said anything tbh. And the strategy of winning by default is working, why change it? Don’t give them any attack lines while they implode. This strategy worked for Biden and he was able to roll out his transformative inflation reduction act. It’s just a shame that American voters are too dumb to join up the dots.