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Putting in letters for what? Change the leader a couple of weeks before an election? There have been these rumours for months, but nothing has happened. Just a continuous talking point. Given the very limited options, they will do well to hang on to Sunak. The economy does seem to moving in the right direction, and even if he achieved nothing else, the smoking legislation was an excellent move. Smokers have been a drain on the NHS for far too long.
Maybe not saying a lot, but Starmer comes across as more robotic than Sunak. That will probably come across in the debates.
“Smokers have been a drain on the NHS for far too long.”
Alcohol-related issues costs the NHS about £1bn a year more than smoking and is even more detrimental to the national economy. Should we ban drinking, too?
Letters are going in Stilvi… It’s the Tories remember , there won’t be a change but when they lose they will stick the knives in
I wonder how many of The Stay-At-Home Party will come out to vote? They’ve been ‘in control’ of by-elections and council elections in last couple of years.
Labour’s campaign strategists (in reality) are cr@p scared of the sheer number of “Dont knows” showing up in opinion polling during the last year or so.
Sources say the ‘real’ Labour lead is nearer to the 10-12% range (not 20%). Expect that ‘real’ lead to shrink in run-up to GE day itself.
A hung parliament is the favourite in my book. I took a Lab/LD coalition bet many many months ago. I topped that bet up in last hour at 12s.
I can’t see Starmer aligning himself with any other party.
As for smoking/alcohol I would quite like to see the figures, and also which is actually the biggest killer. In any case not sure that suggesting something might be worse is actually any defence in retention of smoking.
It wouldn’t bother me a jot to see the back of alcohol, but clearly you have to be realistic in what you try to achieve in delivering a healthier country. You couldn’t possibly close down every pub in the country.
‘A hung parliament is the favourite in my book.’
Bring it on, a Labour/LD coalition is fine by me. Hopefully it would bring PR in and get rid of this ludicrous voting system we have.
Will this smoking legislation get through? Not much time left. Personally (never smoked) I hope it gets torpedoed, nonsense idea. Apart from anything else, people will bring it in from Ireland and mainland Europe, still cost the NHS a fortune and pay zero tax.
“I can’t see Starmer aligning himself with any other party.”
He’ll have little choice, because to gain a working overall majority he has to achieve a swing greater than Blair did in 1997, and his ‘vision’ is severely lacking compared to Blair. He’s dropped ALL 10 of his original pledges; his current ‘pledges’ are just fluff with no “how we can actually do it”.“Hopefully it would bring PR in…”
No chance. Starmer knows that if he does get largest number of seats come early July it’ll be a stepping stone to outright majority ‘next time’; v similar to Cameron/Clegg coalition 2010, then Cameron achieved a working maj in 2015.
The Tories message will focus on
Improving economy
And the truly dire geo-political situ, so basically to the electorate –
“Think v carefully about change for change sake”.By injecting doubts about Labour in power, they’ll be targetting the seats in The South and The Midlands. Those same seats in The South that might have voted LD or Lab in 2019 because of Brexit (i.e. typically some seats in SW London that were pro-EU) BUT those voters got the willies about a money-grabbing Corbyn Labour, so ending up still voting Tory.
The Tories do NOT need the Red Wall seats in the North to form a majority; those seats gave them the LARGE majority. BUT…
They do need to retain their seats in the South and Midlands to gain a majority OR at least
Stop a Labour majority.Their campaign will attempt to seed doubt, into the ‘comfortably well-off’s minds, about
Labour’s Tax raising plans – Will Reeves introduce a ‘special’ NI rate for pensioners receiving an income from a private or public sector pension?
Can Labour be trusted on the nation’s security with the Russia/China threat in people’s minds?
Can Labour be trusted to reform?
Can Labour be trusted on immigration, given Blair’s record?The next 6 weeks will flush out the detail from Labour’s pledges. It’s time to put Labour on the spot.
All to play for.
The current ‘dont knows’ will decide the GE; of that i’m convinced. You only have to look back at the by-election shock results of the last 18 months to see that Labour’s wins were achieved with less votes (for Labour) than they managed in the 2019 GE, in those seats.
“Can Labour be trusted on the nation’s security with the Russia/China threat in people’s minds?
Can Labour be trusted to reform?
Can Labour be trusted on immigration, given Blair’s record?”Can Labour possibly be worse than this bunch of closet racists, chancers and liars?
No.
Instead of attacking Labour, why wouldn’t their campaign focus on all of the successes of the last 14 years and how they plan to build on them? 🤔
The problem for starmer is the coffers are empty … He can’t promise anything as the country is in the biggest mess since the late 70s … a tory mess
Doubts. Doubts. Doubts.
Plant those seeds day after day, for next 6 weeks.
The “Dont knows”, the floating voters, the ‘Not Sures about Starmer’, The ‘Silent’ voters, The Over 50s with their pensions, investments, owned-outright houses… WILL think and think again.
A long pre-election campaign, which this now is, will give them plenty of time to get to these peeps i’ve referred to.
Will Starmer and his cocky gobby ones have a Kinnock moment? Sheffield all over again?
Doubts. Doubts. Doubts.‘The Over 50s with their pensions, investments, owned-outright houses… WILL think and think again.’
And what’s going to make them think about the Tories? They’ve done a lot to disprove the notion that they’re the party of fiscal responsibility or whatever they claim to be. Those over 50s will need the NHS more and more, who’s spent the last 14 years running that into the ground?
The Tories can’t even imagine talking about fiscal responsibility after Truss …. 12 billion quid is a lot of police officers , doctors , nurses …
“The problem for starmer is the coffers are empty … He can’t promise anything as the country is in the biggest mess since the late 70s … a tory mess”
Socialists love collecting tax. They have no qualms about increasing it.
If Labour win, then in the 1st week Reeves will tell the country that the finances are worse than we thought, so we’ll have to raise taxes.
As true as the day is 24 hours long this will happen.
Socialists are born to take other people’s money to give to someone else.And if they do have to share power with the LDs then each individual GE manifesto, effectively, goes out the window
The Tories are trying to tell us we can have tax cuts , anyone living in the real world can see this isn’t the case , we need to fix the country , we need a calm responsible government …everything this goverment isn’t
‘If Labour win, then in the 1st week Reeves will tell the country that the finances are worse than we thought, so we’ll have to raise taxes.’
Good, we need to pay more tax (and spend it properly, not chuck it at politicians’ chums). We can’t have American taxes and Scandinavian public services. If the Tories were in forever then presumably taxes would eventually hit zero but everything would somehow still function?
The Tories just this week committed to spending billions compensating the blood scandal victims. Quite right too but guess who’s paying for it? Another thing for Labour to add to the balance sheet.
‘The Tories are trying to tell us we can have tax cuts , anyone living in the real world can see this isn’t the case’
Quite, if there was room for more tax cuts then the election would be in the autumn right after a statement from Mr Hunt bribing voters.
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