UK Politics - Matt's Handcock

[Heartofice]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

 

And look, it's not just Brexit. You really do seem to enjoy taking the anti-humanity, anti-kindness, anti-compassion view on almost everything. It's fucking horrible. 

Honestly, I'm really just responding to what is put before me. I don't think I've ever said anything 'fucking horrible', the point is I simply disagree with a lot of things that people say on here. 

1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

I think that a Labour party that pushes materially transformative policies alongside socially-liberal policies, combined with consistent message discipline emphasising especially in regards to the former, could potentially be a vote winner.

I agree with a lot of your post. The question is what those truly transformative policies would be, and what is stopping the Tories from simply implementing them instead, and how to you find the balance of socially liberal policies that don't veer off into left wing over indulgence that alienates conservative voters

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

The question is what those truly transformative policies would be, and what is stopping the Tories from simply implementing them instead, 

Nationalising the railways was probably the most popular Labour policy in their last two manifestos, and obviously the Tories won’t do anything like that on principle. Obviously, you can’t win an election with just one policy, but Labour aren’t totally bereft of popular ideas.

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, Zlatan Ibrahimaltvic said:

Nationalising the railways was probably the most popular Labour policy in their last two manifestos, and obviously the Tories won’t do anything like that on principle. Obviously, you can’t win an election with just one policy, but Labour aren’t totally bereft of popular ideas.

Think Tony Blair made the reasonable point that Labour has a lot of popular individual policies like nationalising the railways but thats not going to win elections because there is no central message to tie it all together. 

[Raja]

Good

 

[Maltaran]

Hancock has resigned

[ljkeane]

Not really a surprise. Unlike most of the recent potential Tory scandals this one seems to have got some traction. Pretty much every whatsapp group I’m in has been a stream of Hancock jokes.

[Heartofice]

So he resigns for copping off with someone , and not for being ‘fucking hopeless’ at his job. 

[Maltaran]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

So he resigns for copping off with someone , and not for being ‘fucking hopeless’ at his job. 

Johnson may have to find a new COVID scapegoat 

[Werthead]

48 minutes ago, Zlatan Ibrahimaltvic said:

Nationalising the railways was probably the most popular Labour policy in their last two manifestos, and obviously the Tories won’t do anything like that on principle. Obviously, you can’t win an election with just one policy, but Labour aren’t totally bereft of popular ideas.

They haven't nationalised it, but the latest Tory proposals for reforming the railways are reasonably sensible and do seem designed to make life better for passengers, for the first time in about two decades (the railways is one area where New Labour really dropped the ball, allowing price rises to spike out of control). It's another area where the Tories have outmanoeuvred Labour onto their own turf.

That's also a key point, in that Johnson is actually somewhat populist in terms of wanting to do crowd-pleasing things which are often in opposition to the hard right of the party (who, since Brexit, fancy themselves in the ascendance) and sooner or later that's going to blow up in his face when the party wants him to go hardcore austerity and other things, but the pandemic has given him a lot of cover to shake the magic money tree until it keels over in the short term.

Quote

Johnson may have to find a new COVID scapegoat

I did wonder if Hancock was thinking of hanging in there, but abruptly realise he could bail now for personal issues rather than admitting any problems over COVID and that might be a sound long-term move.

Quite a few commentators taking bets on how long it takes Hancock to come back from the wilderness, from six months (seems a bit soon) to two years.

[Maltaran]

I imagine it won’t be till after the COVID public inquiry, because who would bring him back if there’s a chance they may have to get rid of him again

[Maltaran]

Sajid Javid back in the cabinet as Hancock’s replacement 

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, Zlatan Ibrahimaltvic said:

Sajid Javid back in the cabinet as Hancock’s replacement 

[williamjm]

4 hours ago, Zlatan Ibrahimaltvic said:

Sajid Javid back in the cabinet as Hancock’s replacement 

It seems a surprising choice after Boris forced him out as chancellor at the beginning of last year.

[Maltaran]

8 hours ago, williamjm said:

It seems a surprising choice after Boris forced him out as chancellor at the beginning of last year.

Less so when you remember it was mostly Dominic Cummings who did that

[Spockydog]

Rumours swirling around Michael Gove's living arrangements this morning. Looks like his beard is about to fall off. 

 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Heartofice]

Classy from Abbot as usual.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Apparently there are concerns over looming food shortages. The tweet has a link to the Daily Mail. I’ve definitely noticed fresh food shortages some days in my local Morrisons, and even when the shelves are stocked, the quality isn’t great, and stuff is lucky to last until the use by date.

Dunno if covid, brexit or supermarkets being shit...

 

[SeanF]

19 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I've never really understood why the white working class would ever vote Tory.

Having said that, one of my best mate's dad is a gammony London taxi cab driver. He lives on a shitty council estate, has voted Tory all his life. None of their social or economic policies are designed with him in mind. Though he is a massive fucking racist. 

Make of that what you will. 

 

Actually,  it's quite rational, in "Red Wall" seats (or their Southern equivalents which have shifted heavily to the Conservatives, like Stevenage, Hemel Hempstead, or Dartford).  Most of these seats are not desperately poor, and in quite a lot of them, there's been a ton of housebuilding post 2010. Reductions in immigration from the EU have caused labour shortages in some fields, leading to real wage increases.  So, you get people on average incomes being able to buy decent houses those constituencies, in a way that they can't in London.  The link between home ownership and voting Conservative is a very strong one.  There's a good article about it in the Economist here https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/03/31/the-truth-behind-the-tories-northern-strongholds

Added to that, the Conservative leadership is closer to them in terms of values than the Labour leadership, so voting Conservative becomes the obvious thing to do.  Only historic loyalty to the Labour party was stopping them from doing so, in the past.