Do you want to discuss boring politics? (12 Viewers)

chiefdave said:

via the incredibly unscientific method of looking at my twitter feed thats what I'm seeing as the general consensus. Kinda sums up the whole campaign really. Sunak useless and nobody wants to vote for him, nobody particularly keen on Starmer or really sure where he stands on pretty much any issue but he isn't Sunak.

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TBF Twitter is nothing but extreme takes. I work hard to get a mix from fascist to communist and everything in between and still far right and far left dominate my feed cos that’s what the algorithm rewards.

I really do wish we’d stop with the presidentialisation of elections though. Labour government vs Conservative government is what’s at stake. And you can’t look at the two parties with a straight face and either claim they’re the same or even of the same quality. Some of the Labour candidates are seriously impressive people. Chris Curtis and Torsten Bell spring to mind off the top of my head. A Labour government does better because a) it actually tries to and b) it’s significantly more competent at the basics of government.

arguing over high ideals when we can’t even get a GP appointment seems a tad silly TBH. As much fun as it is.

David O'Day said:

Starmer is miles ahead, he doesn't need to be but Sunak is fucking awful.

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Starmer will win because of who he isn’t rather than who he is. Great

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Starmer will win because of who he isn’t rather than who he is. Great

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He is the second most popular politician after Farage. Make of that what you will.

shmmeee said:

He is the second most popular politician after Farage. Make of that what you will.

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That sums up why Britain at the moment is an embarrassment.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

That sums up why Britain at the moment is an embarrassment.

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but an embarrassment that likes Kier Starmer

What an awful debate, rather watch England...

Starmer was ok, few wobbly answers but generally solid if not spectacular.

Sunak was just an arrogant, entitled, tetchy little shit. Came across terribly. Openly laughed at by the audience.

shmmeee said:

but an embarrassment that likes Kier Starmer

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I think it’s more a case of who is disliked the least.

chiefdave said:

via the incredibly unscientific method of looking at my twitter feed thats what I'm seeing as the general consensus. Kinda sums up the whole campaign really. Sunak useless and nobody wants to vote for him, nobody particularly keen on Starmer or really sure where he stands on pretty much any issue but he isn't Sunak.

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this is pretty much it, country just wants the tories out

there will no real poll movement after that

PVA said:

Starmer was ok, few wobbly answers but generally solid if not spectacular.

Sunak was just an arrogant, entitled, tetchy little shit. Came across terribly. Openly laughed at by the audience.

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I think this shows a bit of bias if you think starmer was okay, admittedly I missed 15 minutes of it, but I thought he came out the worse of the two. He provided very little substance.

Starmer will win and rightly so come the general election but as others have mentioned he doesn't stand for much. He's just got an incompetent opposition.

Absolutely terrible debate format/moderation. Not that TV debates can ever be particularly good.

shmmeee said:

TBF Twitter is nothing but extreme takes. I work hard to get a mix from fascist to communist and everything in between and still far right and far left dominate my feed cos that’s what the algorithm rewards.

I really do wish we’d stop with the presidentialisation of elections though. Labour government vs Conservative government is what’s at stake. And you can’t look at the two parties with a straight face and either claim they’re the same or even of the same quality. Some of the Labour candidates are seriously impressive people. Chris Curtis and Torsten Bell spring to mind off the top of my head. A Labour government does better because a) it actually tries to and b) it’s significantly more competent at the basics of government.

arguing over high ideals when we can’t even get a GP appointment seems a tad silly TBH. As much fun as it is.

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Agree with this tbf. We shouldn't be voting for the heads of parties and it boils my piss that is what we do as a nation.

The best of the conservative party is stepping down in the likes of Ben Wallace, who was probably the best defence secretary for decades for this country.

Not much in it. Certainly not enough to change anyone’s mind. Etchinghsm allowed sunak to talk over and interrupt starmer…just made him appear desperate. Meanwhile starmer didn’t nail sunaks record.


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David O'Day said:

there will no real poll movement after that

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Surely no one would change their mind on anything based on a debate like this. I couldn't even be bothered to watch it.

skybluegod said:

I think this shows a bit of bias if you think starmer was okay, admittedly I missed 15 minutes of it, but I thought he came out the worse of the two. He provided very little substance.

Starmer will win and rightly so come the general election but as others have mentioned he doesn't stand for much. He's just got an incompetent opposition.

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he was ok though, he doesn't need to land a blows really. He just needs to not get hit by a haymaker.

and he did that fine

I fucking hate the term "hard working people", what the Tories mean is rich people.

We shouldn't raise tax on "hard working people" i.e. meaning to the top rate tax earner.

We shouldn't stop "hard working people" from sending their kids to private schools (which is a luxury item).


If you're a carer on minimum wage, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a factory working working your nuts off, a bin man, etc. I'm sorry but you don't work hard. Doesn't matter if you're working two jobs to scrap enough for food, unless you earn £100k+ per annum you're not hard working

skybluegod said:

I think this shows a bit of bias if you think starmer was okay, admittedly I missed 15 minutes of it, but I thought he came out the worse of the two. He provided very little substance.

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He was ok really. Like I said, a few weak answers, but generally fairly solid if uninspiring at times.

There's no way he came across worse when the other one was being openly laughed at by the audience!

PVA said:

He was ok really. Like I said, a few weak answers, but generally fairly solid if uninspiring at times.

There's no way he came across worse when the other one was being openly laughed at by the audience!

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He was less bad than Sunak but he wasn’t good. Which is all this election comes down to really.

shmmeee said:

My main concern is the economy TBH. We’ve been stagnant since 2008.

I’m a techno optimist at heart. I want a high skilled workforce and an economy that encourages innovation. I think housing and infrastructure are holding us back and making us poorer and if we solved them a lot of the problems would go away.

I think a lot of the problems with small boats and public services are purely down to the incompetence of government post 2016 and especially post the 2019 intelligence purge.

There’s lots of things I’d like to see changed. The education system needs reform, we should be transitioning to a clean high energy society with nuclear, I want homelessness and child poverty reduced massively. Those last two are Labour priorities. I want them to do planning reform but we’ll see how they do against the vested interests in this country.

I want the NHS to start using its advantages in data collection to increase innovation and reduce costs and I want us to stop being such fucking pussies about “our data”, I want govt to massively increase data access especially for things like PAF (Labour have said they might do this) to increase innovation. I want high density cities connected by high speed rail.

I want a government that recognises our international strengths in computing, media, and education rather than rails against them.

But most of all I want competence in government to do the basics right because that matters more.

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Some interesting ideas at a glance.

Very interesting you mention the economy because economic management probably won't change under Labour. For all the laughing and joking around Liz Truss's tenure as a squatter in No. 10, it sent a massive warning shot to Labour as well. Any 'unfunded' public expenditure (or tax cuts) promises will spook financial markets which could trigger a crisis in bond markets/pensions capable of bringing down a government. So anyone voting Labour on the belief there will be big increases in public expenditure will probably be disappointed. We don't have the currency strength or economic dynamism of the USA - an example you've raised before. Hence Labour has shelved/scaled back plans such as their green prosperity plan.

Personally, housing is perhaps the single most important long term issue in this country. The reason being is because the cost of getting on the property ladder is raising for young people and because of the costs of associated with having a mortgage (amongst other things), it's putting young people off having families which is disastrous for the long term demographic trends of this country - impacting things like the NHS and pensions. Planning reform, I agree, is absolutely necessary and the Tories will not touch it. Again, with net migration so high, that's putting an undeniable demand on housing and it doesn't seem like we have the resources to build 515k houses per year to meet demand as well as maintain spending on other public services.

On the high wage economy, again I agree. How do you think we can get there? A high minimum wage, in reality, only impacts a small % of workers and won't move the dial. Productivity is barely growing and has gone backwards in the public sector which again puts pressure on public expenditure. This is an issue in the private sector too and companies not investing in automation and machinery is holding this back. Immigration plays a part here (according to the CPS) and ironically, Herts made the argument that the NHS needs cheap labour to function which is an accidental argument against the sustainability of the NHS. An example given of this and a microcosm of the economy; the amount of automated car washes halved from 9k in 2000 to 4.2k in 2015 followed by an increase in handwashing sites to 20k. The issue is no longer limited to the right as left-leaning governments in Canada, NZ (both main parties agree) and Australia accept the 'need' to reduce migration.

On the NHS, agreed. The only thing I'd add is that if we want to maintain the funding model for the NHS, there needs to be a growth of the private sector and the tax code actively incentivising (particularly young people) people to take out policies by offering tax breaks and removing VAT on PHI and so on. To be clear, separate from NHS services as to not penalise low income or the elderly. As for the NHS itself, I think outsourcing has been a failure since it's put the incentive on the private sector to reduce costs rather than improve service. The market 'competition' is for government contracts rather than for service and value added to patients/consumers - that hybrid model is partly why our railway system is so dysfunctional (separate issue). Hence the idea to organically grow a more active private sector to take the burden away from the NHS but I'm under no illusions that this in of itself will fix everything.

I think that's about it from me because no one needs more of an essay here.

There's a lot going on here so will leave it at that.

skybluecam said:

Absolutely terrible debate format/moderation. Not that TV debates can ever be particularly good.

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I didn't like how the moderator interrupted so often. That said, Sunak continued his whiny debating style that wins no endearment from voters - hence a pretty wooden debater like Liz Truss beat him soundly in the only other election he's faced.

skybluegod said:

Agree with this tbf. We shouldn't be voting for the heads of parties and it boils my piss that is what we do as a nation.

The best of the conservative party is stepping down in the likes of Ben Wallace, who was probably the best defence secretary for decades for this country.

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In fairness, the ‘presidentialisation’ of politics has been driven by the electorate. Boris purged the Tories of non-believers at the last election and Labour had the done the same for this election. Increasingly, the party leader dominates the party.

Liquid Gold said:

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Madness

David O'Day said:

This debate is meaningless really, Sunak is shite at PMs so is likely to be worse here but short of declaring war on the west there's not much Starmer can do to change the main of a public that has decided it's time for the Tories to leave government.

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I didn't watch it but according to yougov the public thought Sunak came out on top, but I agree I think it is academic.

fernandopartridge said:

I didn't watch it but according to yougov the public thought Sunak came out on top, but I agree I think it is academic.

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51-49 is more or a less a draw. The reason I think Sunak ‘won’ was that Starmer was pretty stumped on the raising tax.

Unless the tax issue resonates with voters it’s a minor debate point rather than a discrediting of a future Labour government.

Liquid Gold said:

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a draw then

The actual figures are interesting

fernandopartridge said:

I didn't watch it but according to yougov the public thought Sunak came out on top, but I agree I think it is academic.

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David O'Day said:

General election 2024: ITV debate snap poll | YouGov

The results show a close tie

yougov.co.uk

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I saw that, the headline figure misrepresents the underlying ones. Guess it shows how much the public are influenced by intangibles.

fernandopartridge said:

I saw that, the headline figure misrepresents the underlying ones. Guess it shows how much the public are influenced by intangibles.

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the headline figure just shows how bad they thought sunak would be, labour are it seems delighted with the underlying poll question results

starmer did what was needed basically

Tbf Starmer is doing the equivalent of playing for a 0-0 draw in this election. He doesn’t need to do anything too drastic.

Mucca Mad Boys said:

Some interesting ideas at a glance.

Very interesting you mention the economy because economic management probably won't change under Labour. For all the laughing and joking around Liz Truss's tenure as a squatter in No. 10, it sent a massive warning shot to Labour as well. Any 'unfunded' public expenditure (or tax cuts) promises will spook financial markets which could trigger a crisis in bond markets/pensions which could bring down a government. So anyone voting Labour on the belief there will be big increases in public expenditure will probably be disappointed. We don't have the currency strength or economic dynamism of the USA - an example you've raised before. Hence Labour has shelved plans such

I think housing is perhaps the single most important long term issue in this country. The reason being is because the cost of getting on the property ladder is raising for young people and because of the costs of associated with having a mortgage (amongst other things), it's putting young people off having families which is disastrous for the long term demographic trends of this country - and impacts things like the NHS and pensions. Planning reform, I agree, is absolutely necessary and the Tories will not touch it. Again, with net migration so high, that's putting an undeniable demand on housing and it doesn't seem like we have the resources to build 515k houses per year to meet demand as well as maintain spending on other public services.

On the high wage economy, again I agree. How do you think we can get there? A high minimum wage, in reality, only impacts a small % of workers and won't move the dial. Productivity is barely growing and has gone backwards in the public sector which again puts pressure on public expenditure. This is an issue in the private sector too and companies not investing in automation and machinery is holding this back. Immigration plays a part here (according to the CPS) and ironically, Herts made the argument that the NHS needs cheap labour to function which is an accidental argument against the sustainability of the NHS. An example given of this and a microcosm of the economy; the amount of automated car washes halved from 9k in 2000 to 4.2k in 2015 followed by an increase in handwashing sites rose to 20k. The issue is no longer limited to the right as left-leaning governments in Canada, NZ (both main parties agree) and Australia accept the 'need' to reduce migration.

On the NHS, agreed. The only thing I'd add is that if we want to maintain the funding model for the NHS, there needs to be a growth of the private sector and the tax code actively incentivising (particularly young people) people to take out policies by offering tax breaks and removing VAT on PHI and so on. To be clear, separate from NHS services as to not penalise low income or the elderly. As for the NHS itself, I think outsourcing has been a failure since it's put the incentive on the private sector to reduce costs rather than improve service. The market 'competition' is for government contracts rather than for service and value added to patients/consumers - that hybrid model is partly why our railway system is so dysfunctional (separate issue). Hence the idea to organically grow a more active private sector to take the burden away from the NHS but I'm under no illusions that this in of itself will fix everything.

I think that's about it from me because no one needs more of an essay here.

There's a lot going on here so will leave it at that.

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ill read through this properly. But first glance: the mistake you make IMO is expecting some massive change when literally all that’s required is competent management and evidence based policy to make a huge difference. I’m not looking for a socialist or a Thatcherite revolution, just sensible investment and joined up thinking. Internet politics gets far too high minded. Sort the bins out first then worry about the global uprising of the proletariat/unleashing the free hand of the market.

also you’re wrong about fertility. The reason people are having fewer kids is the same in every country: people are richer and the opportunity cost goes up, also this is ridiculous but true: birth rates drop when mass electrification happens. Turns out the best way to get lots of kids is to be bored in the dark. Literally all the pro natalist arguments about feminism/money don’t work outside of a couple of anglosphere nations. It’s happening in every first world country regardless of cost of living or government incentives.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

I think it’s more a case of who is disliked the least.

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potato potahto

Like everything else you can whinge it’s not good enough all you like but until you come up with something better it’s just whinging.

Liquid Gold said:

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Mad, did I watch a totally different debate?!

Sunak was openly laughed at, came across tetchy and entitled. Looked lost Keir when brought up the fact there is new data about the tax costings.

What more does Starmer have to do other than remind people that it's been 14 years of Tory government that has got us where we are.

Sunak claiming he has big ideas but they just seem like desperate Hail Mary's to try and secure the grey vote. Labours hands will be full for years untangling the mess the Tories have left. I don't want crazy ideas I want sensible honest leadership and no more shady fuckers feathering their mates nests on the sly.