General election

November 2024 Forums General discussion General election

  • This topic has 73 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 4 months ago by ALB.
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  • #252448
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I don’t suppose anybody here bothered to watch the debate between Tweedledum and Tweedledee but I suppose we should also have a thread on the mock election so that we can comment on the passing show.

    #252454
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    Funnily enough I was going to post about Sunak and his approach to being reelected. If he’s got even a slither of a chance to pull it off, he needs to start to appeal to younger voters and also to hold on to his higher rating in the older persons groups.

    However he looks likely to have pissed off the youth with his National Service idea and also pissed off a large section of the over 85s by buggering off early from the D Day celebrations.

    I was starting to wonder if he was deliberately screwing things up to get back at the Tory backbenchers who have making his life a misery. Let’s face it he can fly off to California with his squillions and have a grand old time.

    Also was wondering if he’d thought through his National Service idea completely.

    Northern Ireland has about 20,000 young people with Nationalist leanings, can’t think they’d be enamoured with the thought of marching about in a British Army uniform and I don’t think the security forces would be that keen to have 20,000 Nationalists trained to handle guns and munitions!

    #252455
    james19
    Participant

    Slightly different note..

    Posted on X Twitter. Cringeworthy stuff, but I did enjoy the ending, it backfired quite hilarious and very funny. Not lost on MPs who also laughed. Hopefully lots of MPs lose their seats. Apparently it’s Scottish burn?

    https://x.com/BladeoftheS/status/1799533746678341966?t=us1t8nO4jq2nLcHAbY26hQ&s=19

    • This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by james19.
    • This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by james19.
    • This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by james19.
    #252532
    ALB
    Keymaster

    We have prepared a leaflet for distribution outside the two constituencies we are contesting suggesting that those who want socialism cast a write-in vote for it by writing WORLD SOCIALISM across their ballot paper.

    Here is a link to it if you want to post on your social media accounts.

    https://tinyurl.com/2uwdyxr5

    Physical copies are being printed and should be available next week. If you would like some to hand out where you live email Head Office on: spgb [at] world socialism.org

    #252562
    ALB
    Keymaster

    The Green Party is promising all sorts of goodies to be financed by taxing the rich more. George Monbiot asks

    “How did we end up with a situation in which none of this is Labour policy?”

    At one time it would have been and was. After WW1 the Labour Party set out to gradually change capitalism into a better society for workers through social reforms and nationalisations. But instead of Labour Party changing capitalism it was capitalism that changed Labour Party. The experience of being in government under capitalism, when they had to apply its economic law that priority must be given to profits and conditions for profit-making, made them more realistic and eventually to accept this. Today the only change they want is to replace the Tories in office while leaving everything else basically the same.

    The same fate awaits the Greens if ever they came into office. And has in Germany. So Monbiot’s advice to vote Green in certain constituencies is urging people to go down a dead end.

    Incidentally, the Greens are promising to stay in the NATO war alliance — a good start on the road that leads to nowhere.

    Anyway, here’s what he writes:

    https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/12/green-party-manifesto-labour-wealth-tax-public-services-keir-starmer

    #252737
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I didn’t know about this but someone mentioned somewhere that Galloway has put up as many candidates as he could in order to get more “Short money”. So I looked this up and:

    “Short Money is made available to all opposition parties in the House of Commons that secured either two seats, or one seat and more than 150,000 votes, at the previous General Election.”

    So if he can get elected and he and the ragbag of other WPB candidates can garner at least 150,000 votes in total between them his party will qualify for:

    “General funding for Opposition Parties – the amount payable to qualifying parties is £21,438.33 for every seat won at the last General Election plus £42.82 for every 200 votes gained by the party.”

    I can’t see them garnering that many but they might have done if there were 500 of them.

    Incidentally, this explains why the parties put up candidates in seats they know they have no chance at all of winning —- they get a couple of bob for every 200 votes these no-chance candidates get.

    If this applied to all parties contesting (as happens in some countries but not hereb) if we can get at least 200 votes we could get £43.82.

    #252753
    ZJW
    Participant

    Unless I missed it, I have not seen in the election-threads mention of the Septics (i.e. the David North brand of Trotskyism).

    They’re standing two candidates. One in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. One in Holborn and St Pancras.

    Here’s the party’s election manifesto, but there’s nothing much in it that you wouldn’t otherwise have seen on their site:

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/06/12/ieup-j12.html

    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by ZJW.
    #252757
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I see the media and the other parties are giving Farage stick over his pointing out the obvious fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not unprovoked as they maintain. Even the Pope has recognised that. No doubt they are hoping that this will lose him votes but it won’t make any difference since people don’t vote on foreign policy issues. It is just more publicity for him. To give him his due he’s a good demagogue.

    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by ALB.
    #252762
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    Just watched Gorgeous George in his election broadcast. Red, white and blue rosettes and a slogan of “make Great Britain Great”. It’s the love child of Nigel Farage and Harry Pollitt!

    #252772
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    As a rather disinterested bystander of the election pantomime, at times the downright stupidity of some of the “leading” politicians seems incredible. With Ed Davey spending his time on water slides and other stunts, etc.

    But Sunak seems to have an absolutely incredible knack for dropping himself in the dog shite.

    He’s just told everyone that he is “not being investigated about betting” even though no one has ever suggested that he had been.

    If you have deny doing something before anyone has suggested that you had, people automatically assume you did it.

    What a berk

    #252786
    Thomas_More
    Participant

    Even so, everyone in my neighbourhood will vote Tory, including the poorest. I had to do jobclub-type duty and would overhear the others on the dole talking, moaning about the misery of their lives. But they always voted Tory, as they put it: “That’s a given.”
    The same phrase was used about having voted Brexit: “Of course! It’s a given.”

    I still think the Tories will win.

    #252788
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Are you suggesting we place a bet on it? Will we get into trouble for insider trading? I don’t know what constituency you are in. Bournemouth? Christchurch? Both Bournemouth seats are predicted to go Labour. Christchurch should be one of the few Tory certainties, so you might be right about there. I see the Animal Welfare Party are standing.

    I was in Tory territory this morning myself for a funeral near Guildford. The only posters I saw were for Jeremy Hunt. On checking I found I had been in Godalming and Ash, in deepest Surrey, but even he is considered at risk. It seems the forelock-tugging vote is not as strong as used to be.

    #252885
    Lizzie45
    Blocked

    Who will champion Gaza’s bombed and starved children in the UK elections?

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-election-gaza-children-bombed-starved-need-champion

    #252895
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Are you saying that workers should vote for Feinstein, Galloway, Corbyn and the others or just letting us know that this is Jonathan Cook’s view?

    #252897
    Lizzie45
    Blocked

    Who will champion Gaza’s bombed and starved children in the UK elections?

    Not the SPGB, that’s for sure. It resides in fantasy land.

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