People like to complicate things, but it really is basically just that. And it is continually amazing to watch politicos try and create convoluted reasons why it's not this (usually to justify doing parochial stuff they want anyway).
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Remarkable that the focus continues to be on stopping bad things - immigrants, sending money to EU, woke “stuff”. Most people would settle for a nice place to live, secure employment, decent schools, a GP you can see, steady prices and a couple of holidays a year. Add a cherry or 2 on top and bingo!
The Tories keep getting beatings because the public believe they made things shit, refuse to accept they made things shit and now just talk about things irrelevant to their lives.
At what point do the electorate have to own the situation they created?
Instead of constantly electing people who said they would cut services for 14 years, voting to cut trade with neighbours and general cause the current mess?
Ah. I thought I had! I have to admit I sometimes lose the threading on namely threads but I did try and read to the bottom. Fair enough tho - my bad if it was addressed
Labour are getting beatings because the public don't really believe they're making things less shit and, to a lesser extent, because they keep telling everybody things are shit and will stay shit for the foreseeable future.
The Lib Dems, Reform UK and Greens are - in different ways - by contrast saying 'it would be great if things weren't shit'. Now you can argue that they have the luxury of opposition and they're not practical, but ultimately the public are rejecting 'the forces of shit' for 'something else'.
Since Brexit, I find that the big city Supermarkets (eg Leeds) have pretty much 'everything' in stock, the big Town Stores (eg Harrogate) have 'Most things' in stock and the smaller town supermarkets (eg Ripon) get 'whatever's left' ...
winner for a lot of people living outside the big cities would presumably be a promise to return to 'the Good Old Days' of full Shelves in every Supermarket*
*(via our renewed membership of the Single Market) ...
“Britain is shit and it’s being caused by all the things YOU don’t like” is a potent message - and one very difficult for Labour to counter with a serious narrative of their own.
Reform’s whizzing tombola of grievances and causes are impossible to keep up with.
It is easier in opposition and without a record, but the easiest way for a government to neutralise it is to make it so that people feel like the first three words aren't true.
But that's the key problem with this current government ?
Brexit made things tangibly MORE shit, and yet they refuse to even acknowledge that, - and because they cannot acknowledge that, they cannot now even criticise their main rival (Farage) for effectively having 'caused' it ?
Without a doubt. But I do wonder how conditioned to think things are terrible some people are regardless.
Relentless doom and catastrophising was a strategy that worked pretty well for the Republicans last year. Reform are and will continue to mimic that no matter what the Govt achieves.
Reform just won a landslide, the EU won't touch us unless there's a 60-40 majority for rejoining over a ten year period and we join the Euro and Schengen.
This is pretty spot on. On so many outcomes things are stagnant at best, more often declining, and that’s been true for 15 plus years. Unless a govt figures out how to reverse this (or a big external shock intervenes) beatings will continue…
if only the present government had used its *14 years* in opposition to prepare a deliverable plan to address this stagnation and decline as soon as they were elected with a massive majority ...
Those catastrophic 15 years are largely due to the UK electorate making very poor choices at the ballot box (apologies, I know we can't criticise the holy electorate 😬)
I agree 100% with thread but I would add that the public have lost faith with ANY argument that says “trust us things will get less shit if we just continue the system but with the so called grown ups running it”.
A successful strategy involves an honest admittance that things ARE shit and unfair.
Labour need to watch out for the “Biden effect” in the latter case - they could improve the economy and yet still find everyone has been persuaded to believe that they failed.
Well said! Neither major party knows what to do beyond rehashing economic practices that don't work. Prioritising real people over failed theory? Don't be silly.
Fully agree with you on all this. It’s like a doctor treating a patient’s long term conditions without administering immediate pain relief to deal with a gaping wound. The Gov is doing lots of good things for the future but they need to do a lot more to improve people’s lives now.
You could potentially go further than that and argue that Scottish independence, Corbynism and Brexit have all been quite different expressions of the same sentiment, going back more than a decade.
The pandemic gave Boris a lot of publicity with his updates. Maybe we should see more of senior Cabinet ministers on TV giving updates on their department as no publicity appears to happen about all the excellent changes happening.
I think the latter here. Labour do remind how they are making things better again, & they are, they just really need to do a lot more of both the reminding and the making things better, like reduce tax on lo-income earners, Nurses & Doctors (which, much as I abhor them, is something reform propose)
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Instead of constantly electing people who said they would cut services for 14 years, voting to cut trade with neighbours and general cause the current mess?
Delivering “national renewal“ while not raising taxes was always impossible.
But people believe that improving things is within their gift, whereas no one believed the tax pledge.
Hence why it should go
So a Vote
*(via our renewed membership of the Single Market) ...
Reform’s whizzing tombola of grievances and causes are impossible to keep up with.
Brexit made things tangibly MORE shit, and yet they refuse to even acknowledge that, - and because they cannot acknowledge that, they cannot now even criticise their main rival (Farage) for effectively having 'caused' it ?
Relentless doom and catastrophising was a strategy that worked pretty well for the Republicans last year. Reform are and will continue to mimic that no matter what the Govt achieves.
Obvious change to the system, with PR, which essentially costs little, but is obviously change
I don't understand why PR is not part of Labour plan....such an obvious signpost to change!!!!
And, as far as I know, nobody really knows what to do about it.
A successful strategy involves an honest admittance that things ARE shit and unfair.