Westminster Politics 2024-2029
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
No it’s not at all. I can see why you think so, as that’s the default assumption.Nibyism on the nose....... "I'm alright Jack"
But think about it, more and more crappy flats, with no parking, and no outside space. Small cramped spaces. That’s no good for ANYONE.
Instead we need a drive to repurpose existing spaces, and existing housing stock that has fallen into disrepair.
I’m advocating better housing for people, and investment in different areas, so no, not alright Jack - just not following the same, well trodden, ill though out idea that build build build over our green spaces and cramming more and more people into city spaces is a good idea.
Only about 8-12% of UK land is built on.
For many working people living in neighbourhoods, where services are available, schools, shops, libraries, medical support etc. are all accessible, is important.
New build is needed to ensure housing, and other building stocks are future proof in terms of climate changes etc.
Refurbishing stock that has already outlived its usefulness, it's location, etc is not the ideal, a minimum requirement for working people it is the availability to enable them to maintain standard living conditions at affordable cost, that is important.
High rise accommodation has failed on a number of levels, safety being the most important.
I would agree where people want to live it is still "horses for courses' in terms of individual preference. Those with the necessary resources will always have a choice; but there is a minimum standard of accommodation required if the cohesion in society is to be maintained.
Housing should be effectively planned. Compulsory purchases of brown filed sites, old industrial sites etc.
We should not be building on any greenfield sites and we should be stopping urban sprawl.
Where ‘stock has outlived its usefulness’, you rebuild.
You make a great point about services - but when areas are overdeveloped - what happens to these services? Where are we able to build additional schools, in a high rise?
None of your points mean we should be building to increase and increase density. That’s what’s happening.
I think this is one of the few positions we agree on.
The high-rises are 'homes' built primarily to satisfy finance and business, and aren't designed to be conducive to actually making a home in. And they never seem to come with the infrastructure like schools or doctors' surgeries - they just add to the pressure on those that existed before adding 500 units to the population.
Not being a home is exactly the way to put it, and made even worse since the increase in people WFH.
This ìs it in a nutshell.
The biggest problem in the past has been availability of land, and this needs to change.
However it means the government has to address ownership/hoarding of land and the release of land, as well as the usage.
I am told there is an absolute plethora of legal problems bound up with constitutional law matters and land holding rights. Some I believe with presidency dating back before magna carta.
Previous governments never had willingness ( time issues) or indeed the majority in parliament to tackle this head on.
With its overwhelming majority Labour could attempt this now, but as in the past the complexity provides a tremendous inertia force governments are loathe to even attempt to overcome unless they can win two or more GE's on the trot.
Without the government tackling these matters head on, with its massive majority in parliament in order to bring about permanent change, then real effective planning for housing, will remain a pipe dream.
Starmer’s chief secretary consoled Mandelson after dismissal as US ambassador, undisclosed texts show
Darren Jones’s messages include requests for advice on the reshuffle and remarks about former business secretary Jonathan Reynoldshttps://www.theguardian.com/politic...ren-jones-peter-mandelson-us-ambassador-texts
Jones was one of the chief defenders of Starmer at the time, doing the rounds expressing shock, whilst cuddling up to Petey behind the scenes.
Starmer and his paedo sympathising goons knew and didn't care about what Mandelson is, or what he did, it was all performative outrage.
This Starmer party doesn't give a feck about women and girls.
Why was Starmer knighted? What was his legacy as DPP?
You can challenge his competence as PM and quite rightly, but claims about paedo sympathising is just nonsense.
The whole of Westminster, including the media who are now pretending to be shocked, knew about Mandelson's extensive links to Epstein well before he was appointed. I wouldn't exactly call it sympathetic, but if Starmer took those crimes as seriously as he likes to claim then Mandy wouldn't have even been considered.
We've all seen how little it takes for Starmer to remove someone he doesn't like from the party. So its clear his apparent morals are easily ignored when it suits him.
Reform UK raising millions more than other parties, donation figures show
Farage’s party brings in £9m largely from crypto billionaires in three months, more than twice that of Labour and Torieshttps://www.theguardian.com/politic...more-than-other-parties-donation-figures-show
Electoral law needs changing urgently.
Aren't Reform a limited company? I hate that people still refer to them as a political party.
I think that regardless of their legal status if they are running candidates for election they have to comply with electoral law. But Starmer has refused to bring in more regulation of who can donate, beyond banning overseas donations.
So the two biggest donations came from billionaires based in Thailand and Hong Kong. It’s nuts that working class people in Stoke and Wigan think these chancers have their best interests at heart.
They constantly rail against the ‘global elite’ - they are the fecking global elite!
Why? If you go back a couple of years you'd see Labour and Tory donations topping this by miles. It's actually pretty good news that Reform - the leading party quite clearly in the country - can't fundraise that well. Labour in 2024 were at £37m for example, Tories at £29m. Not everything you see about Reform must immediately mean something is wrong with the system, in this case it is a positive headline that their donors are much smaller than previous govs.
It's bizarre the selective morality some people have when it comes to nonces and nonce defenders amongst their own.
I'll happily denounce Labour nonces, Tory nonces, hell I've said Chomsky belongs in nonce hell alongside them. Because I hate nonces regardless of whose team they are on. Which is clearly not a rule that everyone respects.
And Starmer fanatics in particular are gigantic fecking weirdos about this issue. When it's clear what he knew and what he did.
I doubt that is the case; what I suspect is most working class people want is change and not only that but immediate change and they believe that Reform will do exactly that.
Many in these (so called) working class ranks are feeling and seeing themselves and their families sinking below a 'stable life' level and are so disillusioned with the orthodox parties feeble attempts at change.
E.G. when currently with an overwhelming majority Labour could force through laws of redistribution etc. on almost anything, but move only cautiously, or not at all, is it because they 'fear the markets' etc. or because the are busy fighting with each other.... or because they don't have any power, except to fiddle with the small things, the real 'movers and shakers' live far away.... in another land perhaps and might 'skedaddle' with their wealth?
For many (but not as many perhaps as voted in the actual referendum) who have felt let down over how Brexit unfolded, and they blamed the two major parties for 'ba**sing it up'. They are now prepared to throw their lot in with the (as you say) 'chancers'... "maybe, just maybe, it will work out... but at least it will be 'change'" ...they tell themselves
"Drowning people do grasp at straws".... and this unfortunately is how many do see themselves.
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If you’d care to put more than a crass comparison in place, you’d see it was for his record as DPP, which centred around changing the processes surrounding victims of rape and sexual assault.
Absolute state of this Cnut. Looks like Reform’s vetting has worked again.
I almost felt sorry for him he was so out of depth. Like your opinionated mate at the pub whose accidently found himself in politics.
Burnham has been good though.
Burnham has been good though.
I suspect Reforms strongest point is the name of their party. It’s a billionaires project and a home for failed Tories, using division and grievance as a vote winner, whilst simultaneously planning massive deregulation to fill their pockets. It’d be Liz Truss on steroids if they get into power.
The name is good branding, for sure.
I was confused watching this as to what their plan is. How can they plan to get into power with such incompetent, ineloquent and politically uneducated candidates? Where are they suddenly going to get hundreds of strong candidates from?
Thinking about it, I suppose their plan is that when it comes to the general, they will rely on 4 or 5 big hitters to do all of the interviews in the national media and then put up these salt of the earth local types in as candidates across the country but keep them away from the spotlight. It hasn't really worked for the by-election because it's got national exposure and the guy has been exposed/decimated. It could work at a general election I suppose. Worryingly, we'd then have parliament with hundreds of MPs who know nothing about politics, have no status, no leverage, no influence, leaving Farage and a handful of the top dogs to have complete control over their party, the house and the country. They don't even have enough strong candidates to fill the cabinet, we'll have plumbers and lorry drivers as the heads of government departments!!
The strongest thing going for Reform is the power of cognitive dissonance.
There are a lot of people who, in their right mind, would say 'feck that' to voting in favour of a party based on the privatisation of the NHS and giving money to the rich, but somehow their brains won't allow them to see Farage that way
hopefully shows their model of running the local tosser who pays Farage money doesn't produce candidates who stand up to scrutiny.
Will it impact them nationally? Probably not by much. Definitely not as much as it should do..
It will impact them enough though. The next election is going to be incredibly close.
Reform will need to run a flawless campaign to win a majority. In the end, they'll lose voters to restore because they're not going far enough on immigration and/or lose some to the Tories because Farage won't be trusted by traditional conservatives on the economy.
Throw into the mix the Israel/Palestine debate which judging from the "Unite the Kingdom" protest could result in quite public right wing infighting.
I'd also add that farage is the one thing that can hold the party together at least in red wall areas. If any of the shit aimed at him starts to stick, they'll lose the "never voted before but I like farage" types.
There is no doubt that a lot of people are completely fed up with politics and politicians.
They have had the disaster that was the Tory 14 years and not 2 years of Labour not delivering the change they were promised quickly enough.
Almost 2 decades of failed government.
And so when someone else comes along and says they will do better, many people will be seduced by them.
But the simple fact is that government is extremely difficult and given the usual constraints of lack of money to change, very little is going to change.
And those constraints will apply to reform as well as anyone else.
They have had the disaster that was the Tory 14 years and not 2 years of Labour not delivering the change they were promised quickly enough.
Almost 2 decades of failed government.
And so when someone else comes along and says they will do better, many people will be seduced by them.
But the simple fact is that government is extremely difficult and given the usual constraints of lack of money to change, very little is going to change.
And those constraints will apply to reform as well as anyone else.
This in itself is not a bad thing, it actually would be a good thing. What would make it bad is having thick, prejudiced, feckless, know-nothing twats in charge of government departments. Their experience of real jobs would not be the problem though, and it speaks to one of the biggest problems with our political system that you mentioned it - we still seem to see politicians as "the right kind of people" which is why we have so many Old Etonians, so few scientists, and so many people with no experience of actually planning and organising things in the real world.
We're pretty fecked when we're down to hoping that even more extreme racists with just as terrible candidates split the electorate
There's a balance though, isn't there. They need to have some transferable skills and relevant experience. Have they been involved in organising or leadership within a council, a charity, a Union, an industry body, or even just a large company first? Do they know how to hold a meeting, how to question heads of department, how to disseminate large data sets, how to interpret legislation and policy documents, how to make complex decisions, how to manage multi-billion pound budgets, how to communicate to millions of people, how to deal with leading politicians of foreign states, how to negotiate with industry leaders, how to lead tens of thousands of staff? You need some transferable skills and experience. Otherwise they will be out of depth and become yes men who do whatever they're told, because they don't know what they're doing. Imagine a Rob Kenyon type meeting with a JD Vance type to negotiate a trade deal or discuss foreign policy. They would get outmanoeuvred with ease.
It's reasonable enough for a few backbench MPs to learn on the job, but there's 20+ cabinet positions that need people who know what they're doing. Reform currently have what, half a dozen or so competent candidates?
Somebody who books jobs for tradesmen or plans routes at a logistics firm would likely be better than the tradesman or the driver yes, but then they'd also likely be far better than some wet David Cameron looking "political researcher" type that usually would get the job as an MP.
Reform are likely to try and do what they have been doing. Say nothing and let the others make all the mistakes.
And they will sit back and watch the others try and respond to to their popularity by offering more extreme policies. Or in the case of the Tories, align with reform. I expect more defections to reform the closer we get to the election
Labour know that unless they replace Starmer, they have zero chance. He is inherently unpopular.
At least with Burnham they have a small chance.
Most with real leadership, vision, experience and a proved track record aren’t attracted to go near the job of an MP, and even seem to be actively discouraged by Labour.
That’s why you get career politicians and student union wannabes.
Can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would want to go down this path.
I could see why when you are 60+, but not in the prime of your life.
I'm not even sure you need these things - it's not like every MP needs to be former successful CEO or high performing candidate from an impressive background. It's more about how do find someone who is honest. We've forgotten along the way what an MP should be doing, which is essentially being a voice for their constituents - so someone happy to spend their time speaking with real people, organising surveys, meetings, generally being part of their community and then being able to enact change for that community. Then if that MP doesn't do that, the constituency should change hands/try someone else.
I agree though they need to change the typical candidate they recruit, though how they do that is another question. There must be some way to improve trust though, for example they should separate MPs salary from their expense i.e. each MP gets a gov specific credit card and every single transaction on these cards is public and visible to anyone who wants to look. If you remove the ability for someone to commit expense fraud, you also improve the pool of candidates who will be interested.
From a bank bench perspective I agree, and actually we have a good MP who fights for local matters.
But when it comes to Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet - you need a different calibre of person, and frankly the pool is near empty.
I agree on separation of funds. Two things I would do.
Provide Barracks style accommodation for back bench MPs in London. Obviously separate rooms and en-suites.
If in Cabinet (potentially Shadow Cabinet) where the requirement is to be (almost) permanent based in London, housing should be provided.
Secondly, HR costs for staff are not expensed at all, they are centrally run, as should things like rent etc - and actually that takes away the majority of costs.
One caveat - if that is far more expensive that the current system, clearly that not a good idea, and of course if government are running this - it would turn out to be a total farce just like the repairs needed at the Palace of Westminster…
My assumption is that the aim is to create a British version of the Trump administration, with Farage as the untouchable figurehead while the Bannon/Miller-types are actually running things. The difference between the two political systems means that there is a greater need for puddings required to vote the way they are told to in Parliament when needed (unless they are able to neutralise Parliament like they have Congress), for that reason an army of Lee Andersons is ideal.
Yeah it's basically the Brexit playbook, they probably see no reason to change it - down to how they weaponised the NHS to get Brexit over the line with the population they are doing the same with high energy prices to kill renewables and other threats to fossil fuel investors for example. And it works.
With the electoral system then there's not really much choice sadly; how Labour majorities from Blair to Brown to Starmer continue to leave things unchanged despite knowing how in practice First Past The Post favours the Tories (now Reform) is unbelievable, but at least this time there is the chance that it won't just be the traditional anti-Tory vote split in multiple directions leaving them with an undeserved majority to cause their damage.
And if you weren't such a blind loyalist to anything that Starmer has ever done, and didn't constantly pick at anyone daring to criticise him you would see the argument for what it is: that no trinket of any size or prestige grants you immunity from transgressions, past or future, particularly when it comes to violence against women and girls. Whether that be promoting the best freind and close confidant to the world's most famous rapist paedophile to the top ambassador role, or Starmer's silence in the face of the reports of systematic rape and sexual assault of Palestinian women and young girls by Israel.
I'll say it again. Starmer does not give a feck about women and girls.
Couldn't agree more with this sentiment. They become the Prime Minister and then back off from electoral reform. What's worse is that none of them have tackled the travesty that is the House of Lords. It's a cancer at the heart of British politics.
Hereditary peers have gone finally. But the arguments you are making tare the same ones Thomas Paine made. It will never get fixed.