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You get the leaders you vote for and the leaders you deserve.
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Nah, this is bollocks. Most people didn’t vote conservative in the last election and Johnson was elected leader by a tiny number of people who are conservative members.
Sure that’s the system that’s out bit the odds are stacked against your vote making a difference. Then if you don’t use it you’ll have someone telling you you don’t get to complain if you don’t participate.
Maybe politicians could just not be absolute cunts and actually try and help people.
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Meh. The warnings were there.
Brexit was one of the most democratic votes this country has had.
And at every opportunity to rethink a hard brexit and basically, this, the electorate decided, ‘no we actually want this’.
Well ok.
Re. Your last line. That was the alternative at the last election, a politician that wasn’t a cunt.
England gave a hard hard pass to that. They don’t want that.
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John Smith lost because he ran on a manifesto pledge to raise taxes. The Tories are raising taxes, but it is of course widely assumed that Labour would increase them more. Tony Blair ran, at least to enter office, on not raising taxes. At the end of the day the Labour Party will likely have to do the same again to get a PM elected, with such a pledge being believable.
Labour still behind has to be mainly on perception of competence of economic management (incl. taxes).
John Smith died before he got to an election just watched a documentary about Labour over the weekend
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1992?
edit: oh, I see, my bad. Just got confused because the tax raising pledge was under his ownership as Shadow Chancellor.
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Not sure, current Labour messaging on taxation is pretty strong and coherent with excellent contrast to the Tories mishmash policy.
BJ and Rishi have gone way outside the Conservative umbrella wrt tax, the sad fact they need to retain electoral support in the Noth and South but they don’t go far enough either way on taxation which will bleed support and vote share losses.
The good thing for Labour in this current environment is that practically and ideologically they can be pretty aggressive on taxation, government finances and cronyism in the civil service in crafting narratives ahead of 2024 and it’s been proven to have effect with voters.
There are multiple visible “crisis” out there for Labour and others to exploit in order to brand themselves as the party for ordinary people.
Polls outside of late election time mean very little to me and they have little bearing imo
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What is the Labour messaging on taxation, for my benefit as an observer from outside UK currently? Is it raise, lower, or keep the same?
KS defines his policy in opposition Boris at this stage, he kinda known for critiquing govt policy and failures without offering or committing to tangible black and white ideas/policy in response. Some people have an issue with that strategy I don’t personally
In 2024 you can expect a pretty “progressive” or “fair” taxation policy that really focuses on high earners, multinationals and “wealth” transfers, it will be in line with what JC wanted but the key is really messaging and crafting an effective narrative. Much of the Labour focus need to be on “ordinary” people, bringing down the cost of living etc.
Part of the issue with JC is that he perpetuated this concept of envy when it come to taxation through his rhetoric and demeanour which was divisive. My theory is that a “moderate” with an air of respectability can sell huge tax increase especially in a recovering post covid environment. Biden and Trudeau have had success on this front recently
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What a government
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Why is Richard Madeley such a clown. How did he manage to get this job
They do seem to be getting away with it though 
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Yeah agreed.
Isn’t that what the
CON (+2)
LAB (-3)
Joke is all about? 
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They do but he’s still a clown who shouldn’t have that job. Every morning he’s trending for saying or doing some stupid thing
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Proper Alan Partridge
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Thats harsh on Alan Partidge
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I don’t think the report says anything that wasn’t very obvious over a year ago.
It became very clear last year that we ended up with longer lockdowns, a more over loaded health system and more deaths as a result of government dither and delay at key stages.
As well as delays in lockdowns, the test track and trace was badly implemented through a centralised but ineffective process and the failure to secure borders with full quarantine at key stages allowed the virus and delta variant to invade much more fully and quickly.
We’re now going to be paying this off for a generation. But it’s clear the country have largely already forgiven these failures and the vaccine roll out has allowed them to pull a rabbit out of the hat in facilitating this.
I vowed not to vote Tory again (my vote last time was more a rejection of loony impractical Corbyn and making sure he didn’t get in). But I have to say Starmer and his team fail time and again to show a credible set of properly funded alternative policies and I find his front bench largely very insipid or irritating.
As things stand I’m voting Green if they have a local candidate next time around because I really can’t stand either of the two main alternatives and the environmental priority is something I really care about for generations to come.
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