spot
Silver Surfer
Posts: 110
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Post by spot on Oct 20, 2023 10:12:38 GMT
My impression of the last few years is of a succession of lightweight incompetents who should never have been in politics to begin with, who all gave the impression they'd have been happier doing skits at a comedy club. You just need to imagine themselves giving it a go - the comedy club- for a lark and realizing they'd hit a nerve and it was exhilarating. Rees Mogg, for example. Picture it and realize I'm right. Then drop Theresa May holding a microphone and grinning every time someone reacted. I'm tempted to offer twenty other names but it's too easy. With Mark Francois playing the chap you love to boo and applaud at the same time.
The BBC notes :
Bring back William Hague, that's the message they ought to be hearing.
I did actually vote for Ted Heath so it's a topic I feel qualified to discuss.
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 12, 2024 12:39:38 GMT
They're not just lightweight incompetents they are out of touch. When they sit there saying things are getting better and don't acknowledge the enormous dip in people's finances, the increase in food banks and utility debt. This is no longer just about working class people, the children of the middle classes can't afford housing either.
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Post by marispiper on Feb 16, 2024 8:53:01 GMT
That was quite some set of bi-election results yesterday, with a very clear message, that is people are fed up with the way things are. Of course, Labour will have their positive supporters and members but all the others in the middle who decided to vote for the Labour candidate this time are up to here with the catalogue of Tory disaster. Every sign is that Labour will win the election. Will that be good? In my opinion it'll be bad, just in different ways. But hey, just WHAT has happened to the LibDems? The future is never going to be orange that's for sure...
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 16, 2024 10:04:43 GMT
I thought the Lib Dems would do much better.
It was a typical low turn out for a byelection but that is generally the case.
Labour usually only get in once the Tories have made such a pigs ear of things that nobody, even moderate Tories, can tolerate them. Typically that means the country is skint and govt debt is spiralling. Starmer is boring, no doubt about it, but perhaps it is good to get away from 'big' personality politicians and get back to solid, intelligent politicians that think before they speak. Labour are not promising the moon, they have said things are difficult and there is very little money to throw around, but I do believe the social housing programme they are promising is a good thing. A very good thing. We have had far too many commuter estates full of 4 bed, 2 garage, 3 bathroom houses being built that local people cannot afford and are detached from local towns and villages because they are built near to major roads and mainline stations so that people can live in the country (or at least not in the centre of town) and commute into work without ever using the local town at all. That is except when they predictably become part of the catchment for the only good primary school and boundaries get re-drawn so that children from the council estate can't get in anymore. Or perhaps when the local pub becomes a bistro!!
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Post by marispiper on Feb 17, 2024 9:16:16 GMT
Totally agree with you Hild on the housing. Labour would be logically the only party to address that, focusing on need (dire) rather than £sd. You only have to drive around counties to see countless developments on the outskirts of towns with posh detached 4 beds with nothing for working folk. Question: why do Labour have so many women MPs? Never the leader though...🤔
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 17, 2024 21:48:05 GMT
It could be that they haven't had a many changes of leader than other parties. They've always had excellent female MPs. I suppose you have to want to do it as well. More Labour MPs are working class and it could be that working class women are too busy to even think about going into politics because in the early stages there's very little pay/expenses and most councillors have another job.
Who knows really. The Tories have had two but then they've been in power longer and perhaps the ratio isn't that good overall.
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Post by skylark on Feb 18, 2024 7:47:53 GMT
Totally agree with you Hild on the housing. Labour would be logically the only party to address that, focusing on need (dire) rather than £sd. You only have to drive around counties to see countless developments on the outskirts of towns with posh detached 4 beds with nothing for working folk. Question: why do Labour have so many women MPs? Never the leader though...🤔 Developers have to commit a proportion of an estate for social housing or cough up the money for it to be built elsewhere. There is a public footpath through a big new estate near here and I got talking to some of the builders when I couldn’t find my way out. They assured me that yes, a third of the homes had already been sold to a housing association, not just the flats but three bed houses, albeit with pocket hankie sized gardens. However I later learnt that these were ‘rent to buy’ shared ownership homes, and from what I’ve heard these don’t always work well or meet the greatest local need.
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 19, 2024 12:49:05 GMT
For shared ownerships schemes you have to be able to get a mortgage for at least 50% of the house price and you then buy that percentage of the property, starting at about 50%, but some may be lower. Once you do that you are liable for all repairs and maintenance and the Housing Association can invoice you for works they deem needed as they are the leaseholder of the other percentage. When you sell you get 50% of the profits. You do get options to buy another 25% later on. However, you also pay rent at a lower rate than it would be otherwise on the remaining 50%. So you have to be able to do all of this before you jump in.
This means these properties are typically for people at the higher end of low wages or beginning of medium wage. Although in much of south they could also be for high end earners . I remember them building 4 bed townhouses in Wandsworth, with a parking space and garage in the late 90s. These were buy to rent and some were low cost buying via a grant scheme. Private landlords and even private buyers swooped in and now most of them are privately rented. I know one person who worked for Wandsworth Council at the time who bought one and with the rentable income on top of their income, then bought a house in Putney. They weren't the only ones cashing in either. He also kept his council flat in Battersea Rise, bought in his wife's name with at discount and rented that out too. Probably lives in Monaco now.
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 19, 2024 20:27:33 GMT
Totally agree with you Hild on the housing. Labour would be logically the only party to address that, focusing on need (dire) rather than £sd. You only have to drive around counties to see countless developments on the outskirts of towns with posh detached 4 beds with nothing for working folk. Question: why do Labour have so many women MPs? Never the leader though...🤔 Just thought I'd check Maris. Labour have had 8 PMs since 1920 and the Tories have had 18, 3 of which were women because we have to include Truss. That probably explains why there've been no female Labour PMs
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 19, 2024 20:34:48 GMT
Another thing Labour are going to do if they win is have Citizens Assemblies. Something they do in Ireland.
They would be randomly selected in a similar way to juries and would be asked to discuss issues. Things like euthansia. They wouldn't have to agree because it's not a court and their is no judgement. Just meet and listen to information and then say what they think.
It worked well with things like civil marriage in Ireland etc.
They did have a problem getting working class men and women to take part because you do have to give up 4-6 Saturdays and lots of people work. But they got some and with encouragement could probably get more.
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Post by ARENA on Feb 20, 2024 6:09:33 GMT
Totally agree with you Hild on the housing. Labour would be logically the only party to address that, focusing on need (dire) rather than £sd. You only have to drive around counties to see countless developments on the outskirts of towns with posh detached 4 beds with nothing for working folk. Question: why do Labour have so many women MPs? Never the leader though...🤔 Just thought I'd check Maris. Labour have had 8 PMs since 1920 and the Tories have had 18, 3 of which were women because we have to include Truss. That probably explains why there've been no female Labour PMs I am all for female equality but I fail to see how the Tories have enhanced the cause.
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Post by ARENA on Feb 20, 2024 6:24:45 GMT
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Post by marispiper on Feb 20, 2024 10:16:45 GMT
Just thought I'd check Maris. Labour have had 8 PMs since 1920 and the Tories have had 18, 3 of which were women because we have to include Truss. That probably explains why there've been no female Labour PMs I am all for female equality but I fail to see how the Tories have enhanced the cause. 😁😏 Not with their offerings. We want the Shirley Williamses and Barbara Castles - extinct species I fear. I like Badenoch myself though... I take Hild's point about PMs, but I was just thinking of Leader... they've had good female candidates but they never won. Odd that.
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 20, 2024 13:36:42 GMT
I don't find it odd at all. You have to want to do it and enter the fray. You then have to have enough people to support you, who presumably all like you in to the bargain. The system in the Labour Party is as follows all candidates need 22 nominations. That's made up of 10% of MPs and then the rest from CLPs and affiliates. So you have to be popular to get a nomination in the first place, you can't just nominate yourself and hope for the best. To make it to the final ballot candidates must have at least 5% constituency parties or at least 3 affiliates (two of which must be trade unions) nomiating them.
Once this is all sorted members of the party have two days to vote for their preferred candidate, every member has one opportunity to vote. Selecting 1 for their favourite 2 for their second etc. This eliminates tactical voting after the first round. Not making a choice from the others doesn't help. Voting is via post or online. The candidate who secures more than 50% of the vote is the winner. If nobody gets more than 50% the lowest is eliminated and anyone who voted for them as their 1st choice has their 2nd choice selected.
This system of AV voting was approved by the Electoral Reform Society as being the fairest as tactical voting, people having to stand down, vote splitting is not going to get your fav elected. They have to get more than 50% to win.
The difference with the Conservative is that A: we don't know how many members or affiliates they have. They refuse to say. Possibly around 160,000 (Labour have 440,000, Lib Dems 90,000+, SNP 72,000, Green Party 54,000 as of 2023). Tory party membership is predominantly male and from the top social class (80%) and predominantly white, but most parties have middle class members.
To be elected leader you need the backing of 20 named MPs to nominate yourself and have 30 MPs nominating you before the first ballot. All Tory MPs then vote in the first ballot, if no obvious winner emerges they will continue balloting until two finalists emerge. This is the time when tactical voting, vote splitting and people standing down occurs. The final two are then presented to the members who have one vote. Or in the case of Sunak simply given the job because Truss resigned. So he is probably the most undemocratically elected PM ever - well let's not go beyond 1920 because lord knows how they did it then. Probably I'll let you marry my heiress niece if you vote for me!!
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Post by hild1066 on Feb 21, 2024 10:52:09 GMT
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