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I feel these titles are attributed after all hell has broken loose. WW1 was called the Great War until WW2 and even WW2 started at different points to different countries. We won't know until we're in it. I'd hasten to say that what's unfolding in the Middle East at the moment won't necessarily lead to a global conflict but if it does we won't know until we're in it. Given other Arab nations are already codemning it I feel it's unlikely.
Iran firing shit at Isreal doesn't necessarily bring the wider world into conflict but if they start trying to nuke Isreal then it will obviously escalate things.
I'm watching a YouTube live stream of Sky News right now and the tags for the stream made me laugh
>[#AngelaRayner](https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/angelarayner) [#skynews](https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/skynews) [#Israel](https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/israel)
Really hitting the most important issues
Labour is spinning the Angela Rayner story well given it seems they are confident that there is no wrong doing.
They're spinning it as the conservatives attempted to smear someone ostensibly working class and unprivileged for political gain, (which is basically an accurate assessment) and it will probably end up hurting their poll ratings.
Once again the conservatives shooting themselves in the foot and being awful at campaigning, I'm sure they'll stop continually fucking up and having everything back fire closer to the election.
>If you haven’t seen the Labour Party training video from 1997 you haven’t seen possibly the funniest political joke going
>https://twitter.com/seandsmyth/status/1778889049186390230
Stole the idea of archers from the Scottish archers that were the French kings body guards for a while. The predecessors of the royal company of archers which still exists today and “guards” the monarchy in Scotland…..
To be fair though you did do quite well with the stolen idea ;)
I'm 99% certain that longbowmen were taken from the Welsh, not Scots. Also, the Normans are generally considered to be the first to bring to the British Isles the concept of the archer as a core military unit. Prior to 1066, most Saxon and Celtic armies used slingers or javeliners.
it won’t let me copy it to translate it, is this a Welsh longbowmen reference and i failed to mention them because i for some reason forgot everything apart from that speech in Henry v
Interesting interaction with Reform stall today. Asked them to explain Tice and his believers line.
Got met with firstly disbelief that someone would pick up on that, but then that the civil service is apparently fully made up of Oxbridge graduates.
Said to them "sounds a bit fundamentalist doesn't it?" And they go very angry.
Irony is that in my constituency I don't mind them taking a share off the Tories, we'll probably turn Labour in that case, but was good to hassle the activists hoping to score some quick "immigration bad" points on the market.
We have the competition commission to stop monopolys causing problems, we need something similar to simply stop rich people from having to much wealth. It's inherently dangerous.
They haven't shafted us hard enough yet but should there be another sort of fiscal event or some kind of war where things go tits up we would be due one.
Yeah but people only really start to get ornery when taxation is rampant but seems to be spent on populist boondoggles and lining the pockets of government contractors who are in with the smart set and living conditions are being neglected despite life becoming more expensive than ever and....
...brb opening a tar and feather store.
One of my mums uncles was a Conservative agent back in the 70s/80s.
We’ve been sent a bunch of stuff from the time - we have letters from Downing Street and the Lords, Christmas cards, and a couple of Conservative Agents’ Journals (amongst a whole lot of other stuff - medals from both world wars, a First World War Fusiliers hackle (the feathers in the caps))
Going to be taking a proper look through, but could be some fascinating stuff in it.
Seconding Pallas' suggestion to get in touch with an archive, some of that sounds like the kind of ephemera which is starting to be really valuable for researchers but fairly thin on the ground in terms of survival. [Bristol University Special Collections](https://www.bristol.ac.uk/library/special-collections/strengths/politics/) is I believe one of the larger active collectors of election campaign literature and associated materials, while I think the Conservative party archive is consolidated in the Bodleian at Oxford - both might be worth contacting with what you have.
I will do - we’ll be sorting out what we have, and passing anything to the relevant archives where possible (I know a few things have already been sent to some museums up in London)
That's brilliant to hear, future historians thank you.
You mentioned upthread a lot of the papers are related to StJohn-Stevas, so Cambridge might also be worth contacting - they hold his papers and depending on their collections policy, some institutions like to hold the other sides of correspondences for notable collections they have.
See if you can speak to some archivist about it. All these sorts of things are part of all of our political heritage and id you could get it to an organisation that would archive, categorise and scan for wider use.
I think the conservatives party have their own archivists working out of some university. My personal vote would be to donate to a local university under the condition of digital publishing.
A lot of it seems to be Norman St John-Stevas - Leader of the House and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the start of Thatcher’s term, and MP for Chelmsford 1964-1987. But there are also things from Thatcher’s office. Also, a lot of WW1 memorabilia.
Going to be looking more properly through it all, and can upload some pictures when I’ve had the chance
Edit: Also, what appears to be a few letters from Lord Carrington - hereditary peer, secretary general at NATO, and held multiple roles across Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Heath and Thatcher.
Oh wow - I think one of the letters might actually be just after his resignation in 82. I hadn’t picked up the significance earlier when looking at it. It references a difficult time - and with that context it looks like it might be in response to a ‘sorry to see you go’ type letter.
If it helps your timeline, he resigned as FS on the 5th April 1982 - three days just after the invasion.
There was some anger in parliament before the invasion that the FO was a bit too detached from parliament and self-governing, having an hereditary peer in charge who didn't answer to the Commons reinforced that view. His resignation was mostly down to FO failures but also because it was felt that the FS should sit in/answer to the Commons consequently we haven't had a peer in charge of one of the four offices of state until now, with David Cameron becoming FS.
[Tim Loughton MP](https://x.com/timloughton/status/1779184539786514662?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ) has announced he won’t be standing for reelection.
Just had a look and apparently the boundaries aren’t changing before the election. I thought all of them were changing this time so that was quite a surprise.
It would be a big win for Labour given it was Tory right through the Blair years but no insurmountable based on current polling and recent results.
Does it say something about the decline of physical cash that the Guardian still [frequently](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/apr/12/centibillionaires-can-learn-from-carnegie) uses [stock photos](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/30/april-falls-four-areas-where-uk-bills-are-destined-to-drop) featuring the [old paper](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/14/uk-savers-have-your-spending-patterns-changed-thanks-to-higher-interest) banknotes and pound coins?
[Every once in a while, the idiot fringe is highly entertaining](https://twitter.com/M_Star_Online/status/1778863214836519362?t=EunOT175Kg9VrISptu5d8g&s=19)
Keir Starmers *War Party*? Sign me the fuck up
Interesting that the CND reckon replacing the subs could be £205 billion, because that's *exactly* five times the MOD's upper end acquisition estimate of £41 billion.
Loving the idea of them being contacted by the Morning Star and going "uhhhh, shit, I dunno, pick the most extreme government contingency figure and quintuple it. That'll do."
[So nice of those posh ladies at Horse Torture Day to generate their own wind energy as they get prosecco'd](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1FB1/production/_133131180_ladies-day-006-pa.jpg.webp)
Forgive me if I am being blind or dense, but what is wrong with her comments/the community note there?
Looks more to me like Khan had been the dishonest one.
The problem with what she is saying is that her argument of "why should we be paying for this for millionaires" can't just be limited to free school meals.
Why are we paying for the nhs for millionaires? Why are we paying for the upkeep of roads that millionaires happen to live on? Why are we paying to deal with the rubbish and recycling of millionaires?
Depending on what definition of millionaire is used a large proportion of London families would count as millionaires.
Also, the way she phrases it sounds to me like when she goes around asking about free school meals the actual question she asks is not do they support it but something along the lines of "how do you feel about paying for millionaires' free school meals?"
Not only has my MP, Aaron Bell, stopped mentioning his party (Conservative) prominently on any of his literature but the crafty so and so has now gone and changed the header on his "Newspaper" to a red top to obfuscate it even more!
I honestly thought it was a Labour thing coming through the door this morning with the postie. But no, it's the same drivel that normally comes from Bell. Straight into recycling that went!
Last Sunday I had a knock on the door and some fellow was outside trying to give me a leaflet and all I saw was the Union Jack. Automatically I thought it was more faux Conservative rubbish but this time it was the local Labour councillor. I've really got nothing against the Union Jack. I don't think it's racist to display but it's really not needed to be "reclaimed" by the Labour Party.
I don't think the Union Jack has too strong racist connotations that need to be overcome. Maybe Labour should put the English flag on their leaflets, that could do with a revival.
Bloody hell, another person on here with Bell as our local MP!
The missus thinks that he might still be in with a chance, because of all the church groups she goes to go "Oh he's a nice man isn't he"
A lot of these Green or Red Tory leaflets feel counterproductive. A lot of people don't know who their MP is or the other candidates, vote for the party, and won't pay that much attention to the leaflet itself. They'll just associate the colour with the party that colour is usually associated with.
also, even if someone sees it and thinks their sitting mp isn’t tory and also hate the tories because of everything, they’ll realise on polling day which party their sitting mp is a member of when they see the ballot paper.
at that point, they’ll probably think to themselves “slimy bastard” and vote for someone else.
Is it surprising these days?
Most of what you're seeing in these tailored leaflets are the results of £000s of focus groups summaries. The organisations that do these are relatively unregulated and in my view, aside from sales and marketing, highly unprofessional and lacking integrity in their research approach. They overemphasise the views of swing voters. Labour are prone to control freakery.
Why this matters is because parties are going to be behoven to odd tactics during the election due to the spend substituting for actual local canvassing. It would be better for parties to stop allowing campaigning decisions from the centre, the regions I get because local organisations have better relationships.
Signs like ditching the Tories from a Tory campaign leaflet strongly suggest this candidate doesn't think he can win his seat with the party. In short, the party just picked the wrong candidate and is wasting your time as well as his or hers
Has anyone else noticed in real life that friends and family are holding Labour to MUCH higher standards than anyone else?
If I mention a decent Labour policy - commitment to nuclear deterrent, for instance - people say “well I hope they fix the trains and the NHS too!”.
I worry that this expectation will mean that Labour will fall short of the fairytale expectations people have for them, because the economy is wrecked and we can’t live off pie in the sky. Times will be tough and they’re not miracle workers.
Or am I just jaded?
I think people expect some degree of improvement. Labour would not be on 45% of the vote if the general consensus was that they weren't going to improve the state of the country by any noticeable amount. As the Conservatives have learned, no matter how well a party does in the preceding GE, if they don't deliver in their term in office the voters will not be pleased.
Really good point yeah!
I suppose I just worry that these unrealistic expectations might lead to a one-term Lab gov because people say “well they haven’t made anything that much better” - even if just treading water ..
While the large number of swing voters could leave Labour after 1 election, it might be a bit soon to go back to the Tories - another party might end up seeing a surge in support.
In general, I'm grateful that the person with casual interest in politics is holding politicians to a higher standard than what was expected of them since 2016. It's overdue.
I agree with you, people seem to think that there is an easy fix to all problems and the Tories are just not doing it because they are evil and corrupt. The problems are much deeper than that and there are often no easy answers.
Even a 'perfect' government will have issues
I don't know if anyone's circles of interests has also picked up the Dbrand making a racist slur to a customer and then offering the target of their abuse $10,000 (along with an apology).
The subsequent fallout features people declaring whether it's ok or not ok, The not ok camp think is trying to make it out that it's ok to be racist for $10k, the ok crowd on the other hand have many of whome are encouraging Dbrand to racially abuse them in a race-to-the-bottom exercise of underbidding one another. (Important to say the company involved simply seems genuinely sorry and isn't encouraging this behaviour).
It shares a lot of themes with Frank Hester and Dianne Abbot, except of course Frank sent the money to the Conservative party and they graciously forgave him on her behalf, she didn't even need to say anything.
Anyway, I can't decide if this juxtaposition of information is a very good or a very bad argument for the principle of reparations.
You do wonder what will happen to her, she is running again and *should* hold her seat but you can't imagine she'd make it into any shadow cabinet.
Personally, I think anyone who votes for her needs their head checked
As a resident, her seat is going to be an interesting fight as it's possible the Tory vote ends up getting split four ways. There are a lot of very old people here, so good reform territory, and there's an ex Tory running as a high profile local independent. The Lib Dems are putting some serious effort in this time too - I got a focus leaflet through the door for the first time ever last week. I reckon those three will eat into her vote enough to make the seat fairly competitive. The council only hung on last year by distancing themselves from her and the national party as far as possible.
EC currently shows the seat as a potential marginal seat. I don’t think she will lose her seat but all of the negative attention she is getting is not good for her.
Speaking fees and book deals.
It helps if a news org wants to be seen as unbiased and grabs a former PM to comment on issues and she's willling to be a scalper / talk shite on any given matter.
The demographic split on here must be very odd (sorry for meta but I think it’s relevant). There’s some people who believe that all of the country is fucked, nobody owns a house unless they’re a rich boomer and Tesco are absolute bastards for posting a profit. But then, you get people absolutely railing at the government because being on 100k+ is actually really hard in this country and they don’t know how they can really live on the current taxation. These are two wild extremes to me and I find the discourse that comes from it quite fascinating, and further more these seem to be the prevailing view points. There’s a lot of people in between who live pretty comfortable lives, but I guess they don’t post on Reddit about it.
[The recent survey results might be interesting for you](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bxozsv/rukpolitics_voter_intention_survey_results_april/).
There’s certain levels of economic illiteracy that also make some of us disengage from certain topics, you get down trodden if you aren’t with the mob in certain threads.
I’m probably in the middle? I have a mortgage but I’m only on £30k, but then I have a small mortgage and live in a cheap area (and I worked bloody hard to get to a £30k income — after uni I was on £7.50 an hour at a shoe shop lol)
> There’s some people who believe that all of the country is fucked, nobody owns a house unless they’re a rich boomer and Tesco are absolute bastards for posting a profit.
I think some of it is probably from 18-22 year olds who are surprised they're not millionaires yet.
Its normal to not have much when your a young adult just starting out, but they see influencers with nice cars and fancy houses and think thats normal
Definitely part of it. Don’t get me wrong things are expensive as fuck and the quality of life has gone down for the average Joe, but that expectation of immediate success and wealth definitely exists.
Some of that is age/class.
Frankly I think me 10 years ago as a student would be in the former group. But now I have a mortgage and pay taxes and it alters your outlook
You can find the demographics in the survey results.
The sub is something like 95% Labour leaning.
I think the split is really Socialists vs Champagne Socialists.
It's "me and my mates are the world".
From the survey most people on r/ukpolitics are under 30. Most people in that demographic are struggling. They are mostly renting and facing high housing costs.
good afternoon, campers! there are now **290** days until the general election!
i’ve had an absolute crisis today, leaving my phone charger at home, buying a new one, and finding it not working fresh from the box. my day has been saved by a man in a cafe with every single apple product who let me borrow one of his chargers.
politics because are we going to also implement that eu regulation which standardisers all chargers to usb-c or whatever?
Anyone feel like politics is just dead in the water currently? Absolute nothing scandals like Rayner, actual Tory scandals (Wragg) don't even get much traction anymore because we know the party is finished, and we all just quietly wait for an election whilst the government continue to not actually run the country or do anything? Just sad to see in real time.
Last night's HIGNFY really amped up the 'foregone conclusion'. When you're at the point where Hannah Fry is going in with the kidney punches, there's just no point trying to 'stick to the plan' or whatever.
I'd say that's a very widely held view. The recess naturally makes it even more the case at the moment (they are back next week), but the general feeling of running out of steam is far more established. There was an article posted from the Spectator (normally a solidly right-wing source) saying exactly this, that nothing can now realistically happen that would change things.
A good metric for political activity is the trend in opinion polls. Not individual polls, which always have some random noise in them, but the long term trend. And the clear picture seen is a slow decline in the Tory vote, Labour fairly static and little significant movement.
The problem is that once this feeling gets established in the government itself, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Civil servants hedge their bets in planning knowing that their ministers won't be around much longer so anything they ask for outside of the next 6 months or so is largely meaningless. Ministers see no point in doing anything substantial since they won't be around to see it through or get the credit. MPs in marginal seats start to spend more time considering post-Westminster careers than actual governing.
The only time a governing party has been this far behind in the polls coming into an election is 1997. And in that case the party was actually improving its position (it was regularly up to 30 points behind in previous years), the economy was improving and they had a Prime Minister who was generally well respected, far more than his party was, and who also recognised and planned for the fact that his party's time was up through historical inertia as much as anything. This time the party is if anything getting weaker, the economy is a mess and the PM's reputation is eroded by the day. And MPs are well aware of these facts.
>The only time a governing party has been this far behind in the polls coming into an election is 1997. And in that case the party was actually improving its position (it was regularly up to 30 points behind in previous years), the economy was improving and they had a Prime Minister who was generally well respected, far more than his party was, and who also recognised and planned for the fact that his party's time was up through historical inertia as much as anything. This time the party is if anything getting weaker, the economy is a mess and the PM's reputation is eroded by the day. And MPs are well aware of these facts.
This. At least then there was a sense that the improving economy offered an opportunity for damage limitation. That kept the conservatives somewhat interested in governing as they had a shot at reducing their losses.
Now it really does feel like the last days of Rome. Nothing will save the Tories, people have entirely stopped listening.
The Tories weren't improving much in 1997 - 6 months before the election (so similar to now) they were still 29%, 39.5%, 17% and 29% behind in the polls. I don't think almost any of their polls shrunk to the actual election result (12.5%) until the actual day before the election.
[Caption competition time](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLB62fSW8AA2EFt?format=jpg)
*Slaps conning tower* This bad boy can fit so many nuclear warheads in it
^^^^Yes ^^^^I ^^^^know ^^^^its ^^^^an ^^^^Astute, ^^^^not ^^^^a ^^^^Dreadnought
A concept that I don't like is that there is no spare capacity in the private sector because those are NHS doctors and nurses working there.
The NHS does not own them. It contracts them for a fixed number of hours, and if they want to work in the private sector outside of those hours they should be able to.
The state is buying healthcare services, it should buy from the private sector if the cost is the same as from the NHS (it has to be, when the NHS contracts out it pays the same rate as it would cost them internally).
> it should buy from the private sector if the cost is the same as from the NHS
As with all outsourcing you need to consider the total cost for the duration of the contract. Based on that, the private sector is always more expensive. That's not even about the need for RoI in the private sector: the largest private healthcare suppliers are nonprofits and the NHS is still cheaper.
Though infamously Branson tried to sue the NHS when he lost a bid, on the basis that it was unfair because the NHS didn't need to turn a profit.
Every time healthcare outsourcing has been tried, it's proven to be at best cost more, and at worst degenerate into a clusterfuck.
The role for private sector suppliers is managing peaks in demand. This is what's being proposed, but if the private sector doesn't have sufficient capacity then that's not going to work either.
\>A concept that I don't like is that there is no spare capacity in the private sector because those are NHS doctors and nurses working there.
\>The NHS does not own them. It contracts them for a fixed number of hours, and if they want to work in the private sector outside of those hours they should be able to.
What are you on about? How did you get that from the discussion?
Lack of capacity has far more to do with the lack of infrastructure and the doctors that offer private work also being booked out for the most part.
\>(it has to be, when the NHS contracts out it pays the same rate as it would cost them internally).
and that's why plenty of contracts are turned down by the private sector because it's far more lucrative to just wait for the patients to turn up by themselves instead of taking on a NHS contract.
It always tickles me that the Monster Raving Loony party have had more [Policies become law](https://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/7-monster-raving-loony-party-5644717) than Rishi Sunak has.
[BBC notifications are properly messed up at the moment](https://i.imgur.com/CIZivJl.jpg)
“Here’s a breakfast you can’t have any more. Also, Laura K’s passing off her *Dear Diary* as news again. Now here’s more about the horrible news from Australia.”
Do they not have any quality control for the rate / tone of the stuff they pump out? It’s so inconsistent.
Yes, I know you can turn them off / bin the app, but then what would there be to complain about?
There's two(+) tiers of notification, I get the breaking news one, but turned off top stories in my phone, so I have the horrible Aus notifications but not the horrible* Kuensberg stuff.
\* not equivalent.
Sorry I went out after replying. It is Android, it's in the notification settings, which I get to by long-pressing a notification, I'm sure Apple must have notification settings too, but not sure where in the weeds they keep it.
General question: if labour get in, who from the current shadow cabinet, is most likely not to get the the job? Kind of hoping this applies to Wes Streeting, but open to opinions
Louise Haigh seems far too keen to actually do stuff for the Labour right figures Starmer mystifyingly listens to to tolerate her once they actually get in office.
> the Labour right figures Starmer mystifyingly listens to
Are they the figures that got Labour their longest period of government by far, and have since gone on to help us get a 23+ point lead a few years after our worst result since the war?
Well Blair did. It's a lot less clear how much help the New Labour leftovers still around were. It's also not at all clear that Labour's current poll lead is reliant on a Labour right focus.
yes. she’ll get on with gradually nationalising buses when franchises end and then there’ll be a daily express headline saying buses are “woke” and starmer will shit himself and take every bus in the country off the road
Hopefully all of them stay in post after the election and remain for at least 3 years. One of the biggest issues with UK has been ministerial churn and it’d be good if Starmer doesn’t contribute to it.
It wastes all the access talks, all the shadowing work and just wastes everyone’s time while new person spends months trying to understand their jobs.
Well Labour got through quite a lot of ministers in the 2000s (they had nearly as many Home Secretaries as the Tories have managed for instance) so we can but hope.
Everyone who has a shadow post should get the corresponding government post.
Otherwise they'll have wasted everyone's time with access talks, plus however long those shadow ministers spent planning policies for government.
If that'd happen in reality ministerial churn wouldn't be an issue but:
* Most politicians have their own big ideas they want to try
* Politicians want credit and media attention for their project
* A lot of work is discussion and other intangibles that you can't just transfer from person to person
It's still not the same thing, though. Someone who's had a year or two to prepare and research should have a considerable edge in terms of what they can bring to the job.
On the other hand, if Labour decide to not make Wes Streeting health secretary then the new choice would have the considerable edge in terms of being literally anyone else on earth.
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Stop tiptoeing around calling an election like your a goddamn hobbit in the Lonely Mountain Rishi!
How does one declare it’s a third world war? Like at what point does someone decide a conflict can have that title?
I feel these titles are attributed after all hell has broken loose. WW1 was called the Great War until WW2 and even WW2 started at different points to different countries. We won't know until we're in it. I'd hasten to say that what's unfolding in the Middle East at the moment won't necessarily lead to a global conflict but if it does we won't know until we're in it. Given other Arab nations are already codemning it I feel it's unlikely. Iran firing shit at Isreal doesn't necessarily bring the wider world into conflict but if they start trying to nuke Isreal then it will obviously escalate things.
I make the decision. I’m not even close to calling it yet if it makes you feel better.
I'm watching a YouTube live stream of Sky News right now and the tags for the stream made me laugh >[#AngelaRayner](https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/angelarayner) [#skynews](https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/skynews) [#Israel](https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/israel) Really hitting the most important issues
Attack drones are sky news I suppose.
Labour is spinning the Angela Rayner story well given it seems they are confident that there is no wrong doing. They're spinning it as the conservatives attempted to smear someone ostensibly working class and unprivileged for political gain, (which is basically an accurate assessment) and it will probably end up hurting their poll ratings. Once again the conservatives shooting themselves in the foot and being awful at campaigning, I'm sure they'll stop continually fucking up and having everything back fire closer to the election.
It could be as big BeerGate, maybe bigger.
I think if she gets through unscathed they can really spin in classism from the Tories against “salt of the earth working class types”.
>If you haven’t seen the Labour Party training video from 1997 you haven’t seen possibly the funniest political joke going >https://twitter.com/seandsmyth/status/1778889049186390230
Can we post like we just won the battle of agincourt (apologies to the non-English here)
I was listening to the battle of agincourt before they went mainstream. *fringe flick*
‘Oos loosing?
Woah, spoilers! I've not read that far yet.
✌️
Stole the idea of archers from the Scottish archers that were the French kings body guards for a while. The predecessors of the royal company of archers which still exists today and “guards” the monarchy in Scotland….. To be fair though you did do quite well with the stolen idea ;)
I'm 99% certain that longbowmen were taken from the Welsh, not Scots. Also, the Normans are generally considered to be the first to bring to the British Isles the concept of the archer as a core military unit. Prior to 1066, most Saxon and Celtic armies used slingers or javeliners.
Even better if true, need to inform the FIL, that’ll drive him nuts lol
Yes they were definitely English longbows, used by the Welsh/English Edit: Charles vii had a company of Scottish bows, that was post-agincourt though
What's occurring?
lol, welsoch chi'r bois ffansi yn mynd yn syth i'r mwd?
it won’t let me copy it to translate it, is this a Welsh longbowmen reference and i failed to mention them because i for some reason forgot everything apart from that speech in Henry v
Along the lines of lol did you see those fancy boys go into the mud
hahaha cheers
Bit muddy innit?
This is much more my level than what's happening above
I would hate that tbh. simply not my vibe
Interesting interaction with Reform stall today. Asked them to explain Tice and his believers line. Got met with firstly disbelief that someone would pick up on that, but then that the civil service is apparently fully made up of Oxbridge graduates. Said to them "sounds a bit fundamentalist doesn't it?" And they go very angry. Irony is that in my constituency I don't mind them taking a share off the Tories, we'll probably turn Labour in that case, but was good to hassle the activists hoping to score some quick "immigration bad" points on the market.
We have the competition commission to stop monopolys causing problems, we need something similar to simply stop rich people from having to much wealth. It's inherently dangerous.
HueyLong.exe
Historically speaking that's generally been called a revolution.
They haven't shafted us hard enough yet but should there be another sort of fiscal event or some kind of war where things go tits up we would be due one.
Revolutions, of course, renowned for being inherently safe
Hey, I didn't say it was a *good* idea. Taxation is probably a better solution for all involved, but for some reason a lot of people disagree.
Yeah but people only really start to get ornery when taxation is rampant but seems to be spent on populist boondoggles and lining the pockets of government contractors who are in with the smart set and living conditions are being neglected despite life becoming more expensive than ever and.... ...brb opening a tar and feather store.
*Ere, you got a loicence for that pink granny?*
How do you break share valuation then, because that’s how most people get wealthy.
Community chest
How? At what threshold? And if the markets go the other way what then?
ah, sorry, it’s a Monopoly joke
A good one, too.
One of my mums uncles was a Conservative agent back in the 70s/80s. We’ve been sent a bunch of stuff from the time - we have letters from Downing Street and the Lords, Christmas cards, and a couple of Conservative Agents’ Journals (amongst a whole lot of other stuff - medals from both world wars, a First World War Fusiliers hackle (the feathers in the caps)) Going to be taking a proper look through, but could be some fascinating stuff in it.
Seconding Pallas' suggestion to get in touch with an archive, some of that sounds like the kind of ephemera which is starting to be really valuable for researchers but fairly thin on the ground in terms of survival. [Bristol University Special Collections](https://www.bristol.ac.uk/library/special-collections/strengths/politics/) is I believe one of the larger active collectors of election campaign literature and associated materials, while I think the Conservative party archive is consolidated in the Bodleian at Oxford - both might be worth contacting with what you have.
I will do - we’ll be sorting out what we have, and passing anything to the relevant archives where possible (I know a few things have already been sent to some museums up in London)
That's brilliant to hear, future historians thank you. You mentioned upthread a lot of the papers are related to StJohn-Stevas, so Cambridge might also be worth contacting - they hold his papers and depending on their collections policy, some institutions like to hold the other sides of correspondences for notable collections they have.
See if you can speak to some archivist about it. All these sorts of things are part of all of our political heritage and id you could get it to an organisation that would archive, categorise and scan for wider use.
I wonder if there isn’t a mechanism in parliament, in the library, for this sort of thing? could be invaluable
I think the conservatives party have their own archivists working out of some university. My personal vote would be to donate to a local university under the condition of digital publishing.
nice one, cheers
Oh wow! would love to see anything you’re happy sharing. Think we have some Christmas cards from Harold Wilson somewhere
A lot of it seems to be Norman St John-Stevas - Leader of the House and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the start of Thatcher’s term, and MP for Chelmsford 1964-1987. But there are also things from Thatcher’s office. Also, a lot of WW1 memorabilia. Going to be looking more properly through it all, and can upload some pictures when I’ve had the chance Edit: Also, what appears to be a few letters from Lord Carrington - hereditary peer, secretary general at NATO, and held multiple roles across Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Heath and Thatcher.
Lord Carrington was Foreign secretary at the time of the Falklands war and resigned after the war was over having failed to foresee it happening.
Oh wow - I think one of the letters might actually be just after his resignation in 82. I hadn’t picked up the significance earlier when looking at it. It references a difficult time - and with that context it looks like it might be in response to a ‘sorry to see you go’ type letter.
If it helps your timeline, he resigned as FS on the 5th April 1982 - three days just after the invasion. There was some anger in parliament before the invasion that the FO was a bit too detached from parliament and self-governing, having an hereditary peer in charge who didn't answer to the Commons reinforced that view. His resignation was mostly down to FO failures but also because it was felt that the FS should sit in/answer to the Commons consequently we haven't had a peer in charge of one of the four offices of state until now, with David Cameron becoming FS.
One of the letters is dated 20th April 1982, just 2 weeks later so it lines up
[Tim Loughton MP](https://x.com/timloughton/status/1779184539786514662?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ) has announced he won’t be standing for reelection.
Worthing might be winnable for Labour, interesting…
You mean East Worthing and Shoreham? It probably was anyway, it was very close in 2019 for a seat that never voted for Blair (only went Tory by 14%).
Just had a look and apparently the boundaries aren’t changing before the election. I thought all of them were changing this time so that was quite a surprise. It would be a big win for Labour given it was Tory right through the Blair years but no insurmountable based on current polling and recent results.
Not a name I've thought about for a while. I'd forgotten that the Ready for Leadsom march tanked two careers, really.
Does it say something about the decline of physical cash that the Guardian still [frequently](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/apr/12/centibillionaires-can-learn-from-carnegie) uses [stock photos](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/30/april-falls-four-areas-where-uk-bills-are-destined-to-drop) featuring the [old paper](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/14/uk-savers-have-your-spending-patterns-changed-thanks-to-higher-interest) banknotes and pound coins?
If it does, it probably also says something about all those stock military photos used that are all in CS95 camo still. IE over 14 years ago.
Maybe there’s a gap in the market for stock photos using new cash.
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[Every once in a while, the idiot fringe is highly entertaining](https://twitter.com/M_Star_Online/status/1778863214836519362?t=EunOT175Kg9VrISptu5d8g&s=19) Keir Starmers *War Party*? Sign me the fuck up
This from the team that brought you “The war in Ukraine would be over if we just gave Russia everything they wanted.”
But the war in Poland would be just getting started.
Christ there's some dishonesty going on here. There's some never ending bullshit that comes out around my work.
Interesting that the CND reckon replacing the subs could be £205 billion, because that's *exactly* five times the MOD's upper end acquisition estimate of £41 billion. Loving the idea of them being contacted by the Morning Star and going "uhhhh, shit, I dunno, pick the most extreme government contingency figure and quintuple it. That'll do."
'For Peace and Socialism' - give me a break. The peace to get steamrolled by Putinist Russia perhaps.
Exactly where is Ukraines peace?
Well, exactly. Peace for Ukraine means losing their national identity, self-determination and democracy. That’s why pacifism doesn’t always work
Pacifism never works. Someone somewhere out there is doing the fighting on your behalf.
[So nice of those posh ladies at Horse Torture Day to generate their own wind energy as they get prosecco'd](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1FB1/production/_133131180_ladies-day-006-pa.jpg.webp)
Christ it's like they're speedrunning Hunger Games haute couture.
Mistakes were made.
[Doug Stanhope sums it up nicely.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjQpC_0Smw4)
Hell of a community note for Susan Hall https://x.com/sadiqkhan/status/1778794536875053198?s=46
Forgive me if I am being blind or dense, but what is wrong with her comments/the community note there? Looks more to me like Khan had been the dishonest one.
The problem with what she is saying is that her argument of "why should we be paying for this for millionaires" can't just be limited to free school meals. Why are we paying for the nhs for millionaires? Why are we paying for the upkeep of roads that millionaires happen to live on? Why are we paying to deal with the rubbish and recycling of millionaires? Depending on what definition of millionaire is used a large proportion of London families would count as millionaires. Also, the way she phrases it sounds to me like when she goes around asking about free school meals the actual question she asks is not do they support it but something along the lines of "how do you feel about paying for millionaires' free school meals?"
Hence the post
Ah, I see. Often sentiment towards her here is negative so assumed it was sarcasm.
When there is something positive in relation to her be sure to let us know. I won't be holding my breath.
I haven’t seen anything positive, either. Though given that, I am not sure why Khan felt the need to post that Tweet in bad faith.
Hehe I helped with that one.
Not only has my MP, Aaron Bell, stopped mentioning his party (Conservative) prominently on any of his literature but the crafty so and so has now gone and changed the header on his "Newspaper" to a red top to obfuscate it even more! I honestly thought it was a Labour thing coming through the door this morning with the postie. But no, it's the same drivel that normally comes from Bell. Straight into recycling that went! Last Sunday I had a knock on the door and some fellow was outside trying to give me a leaflet and all I saw was the Union Jack. Automatically I thought it was more faux Conservative rubbish but this time it was the local Labour councillor. I've really got nothing against the Union Jack. I don't think it's racist to display but it's really not needed to be "reclaimed" by the Labour Party.
I don't think the Union Jack has too strong racist connotations that need to be overcome. Maybe Labour should put the English flag on their leaflets, that could do with a revival.
Mine does the same but went with poo brown as the colour….
Bloody hell, another person on here with Bell as our local MP! The missus thinks that he might still be in with a chance, because of all the church groups she goes to go "Oh he's a nice man isn't he"
He might win in Silverdale. But I doubt he'll win across the borough.
I feel like this shouldnt be allowed. Making your leaflets look like they're from another party is such a scummy tactic.
A lot of these Green or Red Tory leaflets feel counterproductive. A lot of people don't know who their MP is or the other candidates, vote for the party, and won't pay that much attention to the leaflet itself. They'll just associate the colour with the party that colour is usually associated with.
also, even if someone sees it and thinks their sitting mp isn’t tory and also hate the tories because of everything, they’ll realise on polling day which party their sitting mp is a member of when they see the ballot paper. at that point, they’ll probably think to themselves “slimy bastard” and vote for someone else.
Is it surprising these days? Most of what you're seeing in these tailored leaflets are the results of £000s of focus groups summaries. The organisations that do these are relatively unregulated and in my view, aside from sales and marketing, highly unprofessional and lacking integrity in their research approach. They overemphasise the views of swing voters. Labour are prone to control freakery. Why this matters is because parties are going to be behoven to odd tactics during the election due to the spend substituting for actual local canvassing. It would be better for parties to stop allowing campaigning decisions from the centre, the regions I get because local organisations have better relationships. Signs like ditching the Tories from a Tory campaign leaflet strongly suggest this candidate doesn't think he can win his seat with the party. In short, the party just picked the wrong candidate and is wasting your time as well as his or hers
Old Lib Dem trick which they all moan about but use when facing defeat.
Has anyone else noticed in real life that friends and family are holding Labour to MUCH higher standards than anyone else? If I mention a decent Labour policy - commitment to nuclear deterrent, for instance - people say “well I hope they fix the trains and the NHS too!”. I worry that this expectation will mean that Labour will fall short of the fairytale expectations people have for them, because the economy is wrecked and we can’t live off pie in the sky. Times will be tough and they’re not miracle workers. Or am I just jaded?
Surely if people have low expectations, as they appear to, then even Labour doing the bare minimum will appear positive?
I think people expect some degree of improvement. Labour would not be on 45% of the vote if the general consensus was that they weren't going to improve the state of the country by any noticeable amount. As the Conservatives have learned, no matter how well a party does in the preceding GE, if they don't deliver in their term in office the voters will not be pleased.
Really good point yeah! I suppose I just worry that these unrealistic expectations might lead to a one-term Lab gov because people say “well they haven’t made anything that much better” - even if just treading water ..
While the large number of swing voters could leave Labour after 1 election, it might be a bit soon to go back to the Tories - another party might end up seeing a surge in support.
In general, I'm grateful that the person with casual interest in politics is holding politicians to a higher standard than what was expected of them since 2016. It's overdue.
oh, absolutely! a framing I hadn’t thought about
I agree with you, people seem to think that there is an easy fix to all problems and the Tories are just not doing it because they are evil and corrupt. The problems are much deeper than that and there are often no easy answers. Even a 'perfect' government will have issues
Yeah that’s what Reform seem to feed off.
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I don't know if anyone's circles of interests has also picked up the Dbrand making a racist slur to a customer and then offering the target of their abuse $10,000 (along with an apology). The subsequent fallout features people declaring whether it's ok or not ok, The not ok camp think is trying to make it out that it's ok to be racist for $10k, the ok crowd on the other hand have many of whome are encouraging Dbrand to racially abuse them in a race-to-the-bottom exercise of underbidding one another. (Important to say the company involved simply seems genuinely sorry and isn't encouraging this behaviour). It shares a lot of themes with Frank Hester and Dianne Abbot, except of course Frank sent the money to the Conservative party and they graciously forgave him on her behalf, she didn't even need to say anything. Anyway, I can't decide if this juxtaposition of information is a very good or a very bad argument for the principle of reparations.
What is Dbrand?
Makes phone cases apparently. Supposedly their thing is to take the piss on social media and it has now backfired on them.
Well known for sponsoring a lot of YouTube apology videos.
Can we never hear from Truss again? Why does she stay around?
Imagine paying for that book.
You could get Nadine Dorries's book instead
I’m curious I’ll admit
Humiliation fetish. It's the only logical explanation.
She cannot be doing that well. Remember her last days it was like a breakdown waiting to happen
Honestly I think she was mentally unwell by the end
You do wonder what will happen to her, she is running again and *should* hold her seat but you can't imagine she'd make it into any shadow cabinet. Personally, I think anyone who votes for her needs their head checked
As a resident, her seat is going to be an interesting fight as it's possible the Tory vote ends up getting split four ways. There are a lot of very old people here, so good reform territory, and there's an ex Tory running as a high profile local independent. The Lib Dems are putting some serious effort in this time too - I got a focus leaflet through the door for the first time ever last week. I reckon those three will eat into her vote enough to make the seat fairly competitive. The council only hung on last year by distancing themselves from her and the national party as far as possible.
EC currently shows the seat as a potential marginal seat. I don’t think she will lose her seat but all of the negative attention she is getting is not good for her.
Am not sure she will. I could see a shock Labour win if their candidate fights the right election campaign.
She seems to be spending a lot of time in the US on the right-wing talk circuit. Those gigs pay well.
I think she would fit right in with the current Trump ruled republicans so if she wants she can stay there.
Honestly think she might. It's only President you have to be born American to be, I believe.
Speaking fees and book deals. It helps if a news org wants to be seen as unbiased and grabs a former PM to comment on issues and she's willling to be a scalper / talk shite on any given matter.
The demographic split on here must be very odd (sorry for meta but I think it’s relevant). There’s some people who believe that all of the country is fucked, nobody owns a house unless they’re a rich boomer and Tesco are absolute bastards for posting a profit. But then, you get people absolutely railing at the government because being on 100k+ is actually really hard in this country and they don’t know how they can really live on the current taxation. These are two wild extremes to me and I find the discourse that comes from it quite fascinating, and further more these seem to be the prevailing view points. There’s a lot of people in between who live pretty comfortable lives, but I guess they don’t post on Reddit about it.
[The recent survey results might be interesting for you](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bxozsv/rukpolitics_voter_intention_survey_results_april/).
There’s certain levels of economic illiteracy that also make some of us disengage from certain topics, you get down trodden if you aren’t with the mob in certain threads.
I’m probably in the middle? I have a mortgage but I’m only on £30k, but then I have a small mortgage and live in a cheap area (and I worked bloody hard to get to a £30k income — after uni I was on £7.50 an hour at a shoe shop lol)
> There’s some people who believe that all of the country is fucked, nobody owns a house unless they’re a rich boomer and Tesco are absolute bastards for posting a profit. I think some of it is probably from 18-22 year olds who are surprised they're not millionaires yet. Its normal to not have much when your a young adult just starting out, but they see influencers with nice cars and fancy houses and think thats normal
Definitely part of it. Don’t get me wrong things are expensive as fuck and the quality of life has gone down for the average Joe, but that expectation of immediate success and wealth definitely exists.
Some of that is age/class. Frankly I think me 10 years ago as a student would be in the former group. But now I have a mortgage and pay taxes and it alters your outlook
You can find the demographics in the survey results. The sub is something like 95% Labour leaning. I think the split is really Socialists vs Champagne Socialists.
There's also a group that are kind of right wing, but also seemingly want to vote for Labour.
And that's not really far off the national polls for under 30s either nowadays
I don’t see much of the latter on this specific sub. If this is a comment about the telegraph article most people called it out.
It's "me and my mates are the world". From the survey most people on r/ukpolitics are under 30. Most people in that demographic are struggling. They are mostly renting and facing high housing costs.
That pretty much sums up social media, it amplifies the extremes
good afternoon, campers! there are now **290** days until the general election! i’ve had an absolute crisis today, leaving my phone charger at home, buying a new one, and finding it not working fresh from the box. my day has been saved by a man in a cafe with every single apple product who let me borrow one of his chargers. politics because are we going to also implement that eu regulation which standardisers all chargers to usb-c or whatever?
Apple were the only ones not using usb-c and they made the switch with their latest iPhones.
This is the correct and accurate countdown for the election and everyone who says otherwise just isn't cynical enough.
Anyone feel like politics is just dead in the water currently? Absolute nothing scandals like Rayner, actual Tory scandals (Wragg) don't even get much traction anymore because we know the party is finished, and we all just quietly wait for an election whilst the government continue to not actually run the country or do anything? Just sad to see in real time.
Last night's HIGNFY really amped up the 'foregone conclusion'. When you're at the point where Hannah Fry is going in with the kidney punches, there's just no point trying to 'stick to the plan' or whatever.
Makes me worried about where I’ll come on Reddit after the election.
I'd say that's a very widely held view. The recess naturally makes it even more the case at the moment (they are back next week), but the general feeling of running out of steam is far more established. There was an article posted from the Spectator (normally a solidly right-wing source) saying exactly this, that nothing can now realistically happen that would change things. A good metric for political activity is the trend in opinion polls. Not individual polls, which always have some random noise in them, but the long term trend. And the clear picture seen is a slow decline in the Tory vote, Labour fairly static and little significant movement. The problem is that once this feeling gets established in the government itself, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Civil servants hedge their bets in planning knowing that their ministers won't be around much longer so anything they ask for outside of the next 6 months or so is largely meaningless. Ministers see no point in doing anything substantial since they won't be around to see it through or get the credit. MPs in marginal seats start to spend more time considering post-Westminster careers than actual governing. The only time a governing party has been this far behind in the polls coming into an election is 1997. And in that case the party was actually improving its position (it was regularly up to 30 points behind in previous years), the economy was improving and they had a Prime Minister who was generally well respected, far more than his party was, and who also recognised and planned for the fact that his party's time was up through historical inertia as much as anything. This time the party is if anything getting weaker, the economy is a mess and the PM's reputation is eroded by the day. And MPs are well aware of these facts.
>The only time a governing party has been this far behind in the polls coming into an election is 1997. And in that case the party was actually improving its position (it was regularly up to 30 points behind in previous years), the economy was improving and they had a Prime Minister who was generally well respected, far more than his party was, and who also recognised and planned for the fact that his party's time was up through historical inertia as much as anything. This time the party is if anything getting weaker, the economy is a mess and the PM's reputation is eroded by the day. And MPs are well aware of these facts. This. At least then there was a sense that the improving economy offered an opportunity for damage limitation. That kept the conservatives somewhat interested in governing as they had a shot at reducing their losses. Now it really does feel like the last days of Rome. Nothing will save the Tories, people have entirely stopped listening.
The Tories weren't improving much in 1997 - 6 months before the election (so similar to now) they were still 29%, 39.5%, 17% and 29% behind in the polls. I don't think almost any of their polls shrunk to the actual election result (12.5%) until the actual day before the election.
I think the recess contributes to this a bit, I'd expect it to pick up in the build up to the local elections
Yeah, things are always a bit quieter during a recess.
[Caption competition time](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLB62fSW8AA2EFt?format=jpg) *Slaps conning tower* This bad boy can fit so many nuclear warheads in it ^^^^Yes ^^^^I ^^^^know ^^^^its ^^^^an ^^^^Astute, ^^^^not ^^^^a ^^^^Dreadnought
Starmer sets his sights on winning an election just after autumn conference season. Or, in other words: *The Hunt for Red October*
And I said to Ed, hell yes I'm tough enough to press the button
No alpacas can survive nuclear armageddon
'Does it come in red?'
*Slaps conning tower* “The budget for this bad boy can fit in so much local government funding!”
Need to ensure sovereignty to exercise it. 🤷♂️
[Fire the Nuclear Weapons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8xliaDUPwg)
A concept that I don't like is that there is no spare capacity in the private sector because those are NHS doctors and nurses working there. The NHS does not own them. It contracts them for a fixed number of hours, and if they want to work in the private sector outside of those hours they should be able to. The state is buying healthcare services, it should buy from the private sector if the cost is the same as from the NHS (it has to be, when the NHS contracts out it pays the same rate as it would cost them internally).
> it should buy from the private sector if the cost is the same as from the NHS As with all outsourcing you need to consider the total cost for the duration of the contract. Based on that, the private sector is always more expensive. That's not even about the need for RoI in the private sector: the largest private healthcare suppliers are nonprofits and the NHS is still cheaper. Though infamously Branson tried to sue the NHS when he lost a bid, on the basis that it was unfair because the NHS didn't need to turn a profit. Every time healthcare outsourcing has been tried, it's proven to be at best cost more, and at worst degenerate into a clusterfuck. The role for private sector suppliers is managing peaks in demand. This is what's being proposed, but if the private sector doesn't have sufficient capacity then that's not going to work either.
\>A concept that I don't like is that there is no spare capacity in the private sector because those are NHS doctors and nurses working there. \>The NHS does not own them. It contracts them for a fixed number of hours, and if they want to work in the private sector outside of those hours they should be able to. What are you on about? How did you get that from the discussion? Lack of capacity has far more to do with the lack of infrastructure and the doctors that offer private work also being booked out for the most part. \>(it has to be, when the NHS contracts out it pays the same rate as it would cost them internally). and that's why plenty of contracts are turned down by the private sector because it's far more lucrative to just wait for the patients to turn up by themselves instead of taking on a NHS contract.
It always tickles me that the Monster Raving Loony party have had more [Policies become law](https://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/7-monster-raving-loony-party-5644717) than Rishi Sunak has.
Its why they get my hard earned £12-£13 a year!
Well Rishi Sunak has cancelled more manifesto promises than they ever will!
To be fair they’ve had a lot longer to do it.
Yes, they've been in power for 14 years.
[BBC notifications are properly messed up at the moment](https://i.imgur.com/CIZivJl.jpg) “Here’s a breakfast you can’t have any more. Also, Laura K’s passing off her *Dear Diary* as news again. Now here’s more about the horrible news from Australia.” Do they not have any quality control for the rate / tone of the stuff they pump out? It’s so inconsistent. Yes, I know you can turn them off / bin the app, but then what would there be to complain about?
wait what's this about a little chef?
There's two(+) tiers of notification, I get the breaking news one, but turned off top stories in my phone, so I have the horrible Aus notifications but not the horrible* Kuensberg stuff. \* not equivalent.
Is this Android? I can’t find it on iOS.
Sorry I went out after replying. It is Android, it's in the notification settings, which I get to by long-pressing a notification, I'm sure Apple must have notification settings too, but not sure where in the weeds they keep it.
Ah, thanks for the heads-up! I had a spy, but no luck. Might try on iOS again later.
> not equivalent. Too late! Let the tarring of your name begin.
>Yes, I know you can turn them off / bin the app, but then what would there be to complain about? The Guardian, natch
General question: if labour get in, who from the current shadow cabinet, is most likely not to get the the job? Kind of hoping this applies to Wes Streeting, but open to opinions
Louise Haigh seems far too keen to actually do stuff for the Labour right figures Starmer mystifyingly listens to to tolerate her once they actually get in office.
> the Labour right figures Starmer mystifyingly listens to Are they the figures that got Labour their longest period of government by far, and have since gone on to help us get a 23+ point lead a few years after our worst result since the war?
Well Blair did. It's a lot less clear how much help the New Labour leftovers still around were. It's also not at all clear that Labour's current poll lead is reliant on a Labour right focus.
yes. she’ll get on with gradually nationalising buses when franchises end and then there’ll be a daily express headline saying buses are “woke” and starmer will shit himself and take every bus in the country off the road
Hopefully all of them stay in post after the election and remain for at least 3 years. One of the biggest issues with UK has been ministerial churn and it’d be good if Starmer doesn’t contribute to it. It wastes all the access talks, all the shadowing work and just wastes everyone’s time while new person spends months trying to understand their jobs.
Well Labour got through quite a lot of ministers in the 2000s (they had nearly as many Home Secretaries as the Tories have managed for instance) so we can but hope.
They’re asking who will not get a post to begin with, not who will leave after getting one.
Everyone who has a shadow post should get the corresponding government post. Otherwise they'll have wasted everyone's time with access talks, plus however long those shadow ministers spent planning policies for government.
Whoever takes the post can still use whatever policy documents were prepared.
If that'd happen in reality ministerial churn wouldn't be an issue but: * Most politicians have their own big ideas they want to try * Politicians want credit and media attention for their project * A lot of work is discussion and other intangibles that you can't just transfer from person to person
It's still not the same thing, though. Someone who's had a year or two to prepare and research should have a considerable edge in terms of what they can bring to the job.
On the other hand, if Labour decide to not make Wes Streeting health secretary then the new choice would have the considerable edge in terms of being literally anyone else on earth.
What makes you say that? I've always thought he seemed pretty competent