Frog
Full Member
Posts: 7,049
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Post by Frog on Feb 17, 2024 6:28:45 GMT
The furlough money went to the top, which is where almost all of the money we spend goes. The difference is we are paying back this money that went to the top when normally we don't have to.
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apollo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,502
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Post by apollo on Feb 17, 2024 10:43:25 GMT
what can go wrong?
NHS dentists: Exam could be scrapped for overseas applicants in England
There is reasons why you have to take exams to be dentist in the UK but as normal the twats are doing anything to plaster over all their mistakes and lack of funding
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geefe
Full Member
Short for Zangief
Posts: 8,323
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Post by geefe on Feb 17, 2024 10:47:15 GMT
Oh yay. I look forward to my teeth being seen by a man less qualified than a barber.
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Post by simple on Feb 17, 2024 12:48:41 GMT
Luckily it says its a three month consultation so it’ll report back after a May election and change in government
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zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 2,857
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Post by zephro on Feb 17, 2024 12:55:03 GMT
Yesterday's swing was an edge case tho. You've got the background polling being poor for the tories, *and* you've got a by-election where the person who is being removed in disgrace putting his own girlfriend forward as his preferred option. It was the most piss-taking hubris imaginable. Things that are inevitable: 1. New boundaries given tories an advantage 2. reform voters being scarred of labour winning 3. general tendency for things to tighten things that can happen: 1. Manifestos containing something the media latch on to (remember May's dementia tax?) 2. general attrition to popular opinion (leads never persist) 3. reform formally agreeing not to stand in marginals against tories at risk (in exchange for policy shift) 4. SNP sorting their shit out in Scotland and attracting votes back from Labour To be clear, I'm not saying that Labour are likely to lose, but I genuinely think the risks of at least a minority Labour government are being understated. There were 2 yesterday, well Thursday now. Wellingborough was extreme but Kingswood roughly follows the pattern of the last 10 by-elections. The Tories down 20-25%, Labour up anywhere from 10% to 20%. Or the Lib Dems for a couple. It's actually forming a pattern at this point that the Tories are deeply, deeply unpopular and being blamed for everything that's wrong. At this point they're basically not extreme edge cases. 1. The new boundaries are maybe 5-10 seats advantage. Though it's actually just creating more marginals. Most the new seats are in the home counties around London, as population growth has happened from people leaving London even as more people move there. So the geographically larger (more countryside and villages) shire seats are getting subdivided and are now more urban heavy, so 1 urban core with maybe a couple villages. So you're back to Tory positioning on going centre or hard right. As these new constituencies are going to be liberal/centrist ones. While the constituencies disappearing are mostly in the "Red Wall" where population has declined. 2. This is where 1 and 2 interact. Reform will run against the Tories unless the Tories move to the hard right, which loses them the advantage from 1. There's an inescapable contradiction in the coalition (the anti-Corbyn one) they assembled in 2019 and generally within the factions of the Tory party. Also the entire potential Reform vote (which has only shown up in the by-elections this week, but has otherwise not been at play) would need to shift to get a full 10% of the vote back. Which is unlikely as a bunch are just going to vote Labour or fuck off to apathy and not vote. 3. This is usually between 5 and 10%, so average is around 7. 1-4 could all happen. 1, Labour are being so cautious that seems unlikely. 2. As above the far right vote of Reform would need to universally swing behind the Tories, but any way the Tories get there alienates even more centrist voters. The current lead is so large and sustained you basically need all of that to happen and at the extreme end of it, to even drag it to a hung parliament. Then Labour also lead on "Who'd make a better Prime Minister" and the economy. Which was true in 97, but never true for Milliband, Kinnock or Corbyn. 2017 the dementia tax played a big part, but also May was absolutely fucking useless at campaigning. There's also Sunak. Who has only become less popular and more loathed over time. There's absolutely 0 evidence that he is any good at politics, let alone actual campaigning. Any time he does interviews or meets the public it's deeply cringe, he just doesn't have it in him. Plus he lost to Lizz Truss the one time he did try and run one. It going wrong hinges on Sunak suddenly pulling a load of political skills out of his arse and running a brilliant campaign while Labour somehow fuck it all up. Plus it's unlikely the NHS will be functional by the Autumn, or any of the other umpteen things that are fucked up. That's my impression anyhow. It would require a miracle to even get to minority government at this point.
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Post by Vandelay on Feb 17, 2024 14:19:46 GMT
Agree with everything Zephro says. I know people want to be pessimistic about it all, but it really would have to take something significant for there to even be a hung parliament now. Yes, polling can't always be trusted and yes local issues play a part in the results in by-elections, but we have multiple data points across a reasonable extent of time to work with now and they all point towards to same thing.
Of course, I do think polls will narrow and we won't get the crazy results that some extrapolations of these recent by-elections have produced, where Tories are the third or fourth biggest party. Still though, I believe we will be seeing a healthy Labour majority of at least 50+ seats.
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Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,959
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Post by Rich on Feb 17, 2024 14:42:36 GMT
Yeah there is almost no question around Labour winning or not. The only real question is what will they be able to make out of the ashes of the country (that haven't been sold off) when they do take power.
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apollo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,502
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Post by apollo on Feb 17, 2024 15:06:49 GMT
Don't take Labour win as an guarantee, I know I lot of left leaning people who thought remain was guaranteed and didn't vote. Also idiots who didn't want to vote for Hilary and Trump got in 2016
Make sure to vote
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cubby
Full Member
doesn't get subtext
Posts: 6,117
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Post by cubby on Feb 17, 2024 15:08:48 GMT
I have a feeling a lot of people feel motivated to tell the tories to fuck off this time.
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Post by Vandelay on Feb 17, 2024 19:05:56 GMT
Even though I'm fairly certain of a Labour win, it is still important reiterate this!
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Post by Chopsen on Feb 17, 2024 20:27:35 GMT
I'm old enough to remember when everybody was confidently predicting that labour could never win the next GE, and all Starmer could hope to do is detoxify the reputation of the party and have a clear run for the GE after that. That was...oooooh.....6 months ago? We have longer than that to go till the next GE.
Things can change.
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Post by Dougs on Feb 17, 2024 20:42:46 GMT
Agree entirely. Although I point to Sunak. I just can't see his ratings improving enough to make that much difference. You never know of course. But so far, aby interaction with the public has been pretty disastrous.
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zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 2,857
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Post by zephro on Feb 17, 2024 22:31:47 GMT
You never know. But it wasn't really 6 months ago. Labour have been comfortably in the lead since partygate in mid 22, Truss made it worse and Sunak has done nothing.
The public have just stopped listening to the Tories. It'd take a political genius to get the Tory party to stop in fighting and then come up with GE campaign.
The evidence to date is that Sunak isn't that and has the instincts of a lost fish on dry land.
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Post by Trowel 🏴 on Feb 17, 2024 23:45:13 GMT
Quite a story in the Times tomorrow
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Post by stuz359 on Feb 17, 2024 23:48:18 GMT
My fear, or caveat, is that Labour are not actually offering anything new.
Indeed, the rhetoric suggests more austerity policies. I really hope I am wrong and Labour are much more bold when in power. I'm in a safe Labour seat, my MP is Diana Johnson and I am a fan of hers. Her work on select committees if really impressive.
Right now, the Labour offer is basically 'we're not them.' That's really not inspiring.
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Post by manfromdelmonte on Feb 17, 2024 23:49:02 GMT
50+ Tories are standing down (including the chancellor) and a sizeable portion of the rest actually want to lose, to position themselves as future leaders. I can't see there being much heart in the Tory campaign.
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Post by simple on Feb 17, 2024 23:54:36 GMT
My constituency had literally never had an MP who wasn’t Labour up until 2019 when the Tories overturned a five-figure majority. Everything suggests it’ll swing back at the next GE but it feels more like regression to the mean than inspiration in a greater vision.
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geefe
Full Member
Short for Zangief
Posts: 8,323
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Post by geefe on Feb 18, 2024 0:04:05 GMT
Labour don't need to offer anything new right now. They need to get in and clear the inevitable mess up. Flashy new policies before they've assessed the damage is folly.
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Post by stuz359 on Feb 18, 2024 0:09:39 GMT
My constituency had literally never had an MP who wasn’t Labour up until 2019 when the Tories overturned a five-figure majority. Everything suggests it’ll swing back at the next GE but it feels more like regression to the mean than inspiration in a greater vision. I'll vote Labour, I always use my vote. I'll vote because I like my local MP. I'm not inspired to vote for the national party, but they will get my vote, for FPTP reasons. Just don't expect me to be enthusiastic about it.
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X201
Junior Member
Posts: 4,886
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Post by X201 on Feb 18, 2024 0:19:51 GMT
I was thinking similar regarding the mess they will inherit. There would be mileage in doing something as radical financially as when they made the Bank of England independent last time they took power.
Perhaps making the OBR, or some other independent body, give a state of the nation’s economy broadcast that HAS to be broadcast by the main channels in the same manner as a party political broadcast. Educate the nation, especially the ones who only bother with politics once every five years.
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Post by manfromdelmonte on Feb 18, 2024 0:29:46 GMT
Even if Labour had the same policies they'd still have a distinct advantage as far as financial markets are concerned. In that there's zero chance of Liz Truss, or an ally of hers taking control. The lack of ambition is message to the markets, they can gain fiscal headroom just by not posing a threat.
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Post by stuz359 on Feb 18, 2024 0:38:00 GMT
Was the OBR the body that Osbourne set up? A quango that is basically aligned with austerity? See, the IEA have a perfectly legitimate sounding title. The 'Institute of economic affairs' sounds legitimate right?
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Post by technoish on Feb 18, 2024 8:38:18 GMT
Was the OBR the body that Osbourne set up? A quango that is basically aligned with austerity? See, the IEA have a perfectly legitimate sounding title. The 'Institute of economic affairs' sounds legitimate right? It's not aligned with austerity, it just gives independent assessment of impact of spending and tax plans. You will recall Kwasi tried to avoid them vetting his disaster budget... But if the gvt has set up fiscal rules then they will of course say how plans align to that.
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Post by technoish on Feb 18, 2024 8:41:20 GMT
Quite a story in the Times tomorrow It's currently basically anything they can do to not have to score spending or change the spending assumption after the next FY. See IFS comment on this about how ridiculously unbelievable the implied spending assumption is from 2025/26 onwards. OBR head Richard Hughes was also quite direct (and funny) in select committee a couple weeks back on how they were having to write fictitious reports because the spending assumptions were a fiction.
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Post by Whizzo on Feb 18, 2024 10:55:24 GMT
Setting up the OBR was the only good thing Osborne did while he was Chancellor.
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geefe
Full Member
Short for Zangief
Posts: 8,323
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Post by geefe on Feb 18, 2024 11:25:49 GMT
And extending Sunday trading hours.
For a bit.
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Post by Chopsen on Feb 18, 2024 12:27:33 GMT
Agree entirely. Although I point to Sunak. I just can't see his ratings improving enough to make that much difference. You never know of course. But so far, aby interaction with the public has been pretty disastrous. True dat. I am massively underpricing the impact of Sunak's unpopularity. You don't see the electorate give politicians a second chance. Once their reputation is gone, it's *gone*.
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Bongo Heracles
Junior Member
Technically illegal to ride on public land
Posts: 4,378
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Feb 18, 2024 12:33:55 GMT
I don’t think he had much of one in the first place. Everyone just saw him as a beige accountant and all he’s done is prove he can’t even do that properly. I mean, Liz Truss beat him in a popularity contest. Absolutely nobody wanted him.
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Post by Chopsen on Feb 18, 2024 12:37:32 GMT
...among the Tory party membership, a niche bunch of weirdos with a fetish for people doing a Thatcher cosplay.
I may be misremembering, but when he was throwing money at people during COVID, I think he had a reasonable approval rating.
When he actually had to do anything or say anything outside of that, that's when everything went wrong.
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Post by Whizzo on Feb 18, 2024 12:39:16 GMT
It's probably not the most difficult thing to do buying popularity with "free" money to people. The days of that fucking awful and should never have been even a thought in someone's brain at the BBC with "SuperRishi" are long over.
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