General Election 2024

[Bob McC]

The National Service proposal is a curious mix of 30,000 full time 18 year olds to increase are services numbers by 40% on the cheap plus 12 weekends per year to get help in local communities for the remainder of 18 year olds. Most would choose the weekends and skive.

This memoir of post war conscription suggests for many it was one long skive.
Published years ago, but it would have to have been. No one on PFM will have experienced it.

Review: The Call-up by Tom Hickman

Mike McNay on Tom Hickman's The Call-up, a portrait of conscription hell.

www.theguardian.com

 

[ks.234]

Incredible behaviour.

Excellent article.

It draws up a list of prioritises, then turns them upside down. It starts off with economics at the top, then when addressing the most basic of issues, puts it at the bottom.

Sodah does though identify the problem she is trying to de-prioritise where she says that Labour have “effectively adopted the Tory macroeconomic worldview and with it a set of spending constraints that no one sensible thinks either party could stick to in the wake of the election”. Labour on the other hand, far from gently sliding over the myths and false narratives, have swallowed them whole and regurgitated them undigested and coated with kevlar. Both absorbent and repellant in equal measure

How apt.

What she doesn’t say is that in adopting Tory macroeconomic dogma, Labour have made it “ironclad”. The Tory party have the self same dogma but never stick to it because that would be stupid.

Labour are campaigning on a promise to stick to it like glue and it looks like the one and only promise that will stick to.

 

[Finnegan]

The good thing is that there seems to be a growing awareness, and nervousness, that everybody hates them and will be voting for them solely to get rid of the worst government the country has ever had.

Parallels with 97 and the burning desire to rid ourselves of 18 years of Tory rule. The crucial difference is of course there was widespread and genuine optimism surrounding New Labour, and they came to power on the cusp of a growing economy. Starmer comes to power with an already abysmally low popularity rating and promising nothing more than being a bit more efficient at serving ruling class interests and making “difficult choices.”

Its gonna be shit, it really, really is.

 

[Mullardman]

Yes, he's clever.

He's not that clever... As I recall he was the one who bemoaned the number of 'Arts' Degrees in the UK in complete ignorance of the UK Arts/Fashion/Media industries' huge export earnings.
He's a knob.

 

[ks.234]

Parallels with 97 and the burning desire to rid ourselves of 18 years of Tory rule. The crucial difference is of course there was widespread and genuine optimism surrounding New Labour, and they came to power on the cusp of a growing economy. Starmer comes to power with an already abysmally low popularity rating and promising nothing more than being a bit more efficient at serving ruling class interests and making “difficult choices.”

Its gonna be shit, it really, really is.

Yes. Thatcher said that Blair was her greatest achievement and today Reeves is talking undiluted Thatcher soundbites and promising yet more privatisation, deregulation and public spending cuts.

Any change that is not a change of PDP, is not the change we so desperately need.

 

[MVV]

It’s gonna be shit, it really, really is.

I think so. In our free world of choice and democracy so carefully constructed we don’t see the walls.
When it goes to ratshit we will be helped to understand that it is our fault.

 

[Kirk]

x.com

x.com

Ahem, the Get Brexit Done tribe. Can't recall anyone who is standing down saying that it is done or taking responsibility for it. They should all be automatically enrolled in National Service forthwith.

 

[Finnegan]

I think so. In our free world of choice and democracy so carefully constructed we don’t see the walls.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

Frank Zappa

 

[Finnegan]

There’s gonna be plenty of unemployed former Tory MP’s come July 5th.

 

[ks.234]

Good on him. I don't really understand how anyone sensible could retain their membership. I guess, as Mick's post suggests, they think "things can only get better"...

Anyone who admired Thatcher and is now intending to vote Labour, is voting for more of the same. And they will get it.

It is the ones who think they will get something different who are going to be disappointed

 

[paulfromcamden]

Anyone who admired Thatcher and is now intending to vote Labour, is voting for more of the same. And they will get it.

It is the ones who think they will get something different who are going to be disappointed

Yes I agree. But my post was in response to Mick's assertion that after a "good clear out" of the Conservative Party things will get better and they will drift towards the centre.

 

[Finnegan]

Yes I agree. But my post was in response to Mick's assertion that after a "good clear out" of the Conservative Party things will get better and they will drift towards the centre.

Politics abhors a vacuum. If the Tory party disintegrates (as it’s showing every sign of doing) what will replace it for the right to coalesce around? Just as five years of broken Biden promises have opened the door for Trump’s return to the White House, the inevitable disillusionment with Starmer will create an extremely perilous opening for Reform/ Farage/ Braverman/ Badenoch/ Yaxley-Lennon in whatever guise they adopt.

I recently turned 60 and have more yesterdays behind me than tomorrows in front of me, but I dread to think where we might find ourselves in ten or twenty years time.

 

[Tony L]

But my post was in response to Mick's assertion that after a "good clear out" of the Conservative Party things will get better and they will drift towards the centre.

I don’t think it is possible as they have totally destroyed any notion of economic competence by prioritising elite money-laundering over the real economy with their Brexit policy. The only possible way back for either party is to take a really long hard look at Brexit, address why the UK was sent down such an absurdly damaging path, and to attempt to reverse out. It is the elephant in the room for both parties and it is not going anywhere. It is the reason there is still no real political debate even less than six weeks away from a general election.

It will be interesting/scary to see how the post-Brexit border legislation that became active on 30th April (BBC) hits home over the next weeks. My suspicion is that is a big factor in the early election, i.e. the Tories fully understand just how catastrophic their corrupt self-serving actions have been for the UK economically and are desperately trying to run away from having to clear up any of their mess.

 

[matt j]

I always try to ensure that they see me putting their materials straight in to the outside bin!

I must live in a political black spot because I get hardly any material through the post or canvassers door knocking.

Without doing my own research I wouldn't even know the first thing about local candidates or what parties are putting people up.

 

[ks.234]

Yes I agree. But my post was in response to Mick's assertion that after a "good clear out" of the Conservative Party things will get better and they will drift towards the centre.

Mick is entirely correct. The impetus that the current Labour Party is enacting is a pull to the Elphickish right.

A Republican/Democrat-like flip whereby on the one hand it is the Tories who first try to experiment with a tiny little bit of social democracy, and Labour argues against it because it hasn’t got anywhere else to go.

And on the other the Tories have to move more to the left because they have nowhere else to go.

How the actual f*ck did we get here?

 

[Mick P]

Mick is entirely correct. The impetus that the current Labour Party is enacting is a pull to the Elphickish right.

A Republican/Democrat-like flip whereby on the one hand it is the Tories who first try to experiment with a tiny little bit of social democracy, and Labour argues against it because it hasn’t got anywhere else to go.

And on the other the Tories have to move more to the left because they have nowhere else to go.

How the actual f*ck did we get here?

Because it's what the great public want. Most people are a mixture of Labour and Tory so if that's where the votes are, that's where the politicians head.

Anyway I am now going to take a snooze after another long and lazy lunch.

 

[Mick P]

I must live in a political black spot because I get hardly any material through the post or canvassers door knocking.

Without doing my own research I wouldn't even know the first thing about local candidates or what parties are putting people up.

Recent investigations are pointing to the fact that a lot of people feel that someone knocking on their door to sell a political message is an invasion of their privacy, so hence it may soon be dropped.

 

[Barrymagrec]

Recent investigations are pointing to the fact that a lot of people feel that someone knocking on their door to sell a political message is an invasion of their privacy, so hence it may soon be dropped.

I`m not surprised by that, these days many people are reluctant to open their door to unexpected / unwanted callers, especially after dark.

I think the joho`s have cut back a lot on their door knocking.

 

[ks.234]

Recent investigations are pointing to the fact that a lot of people feel that someone knocking on their door to sell a political message is an invasion of their privacy, so hence it may soon be dropped.

I wish it were dropped in the winter of 2019.

There were some icy blasts around then.

 

[Finnegan]

I`m not surprised by that, these days many people are reluctant to open their door to unexpected / unwanted callers, especially after dark.

I think the joho`s have cut back a lot on their door knocking.

They send letters now.