The UK’s Fake Politics 128


I found this list on the Facebook page of Anya Darr. The information in it checks out, and it is pretty startling.

I was anxious to namecheck Anya Darr because she is being evicted from her little cottage while awaiting a fresh disability assessment from the NHS. It is a story typical of the cruelty of Tory Britain. There are plentiful resources for everybody to live comfortably, but many millions of lives are blighted by massive and growing inequality of wealth distribution.

Starmer New Labour has now adopted the position of opposing strike action by the working class because it is an inconvenience to the public. The inconvenience of refusing their labour is the only tool the working class has to combat destitution where the price of everything is permitted to rise except the price of labour.

Despite blatantly lying to gain election by the membership, Starmer has dropped all of Corbyn’s key plans to renationalise the railways and public utilities. In fact he appears to have no serious plans at all to combat the collapse in social values and devastation of the poor caused by rampant neo-liberalism.

That is not an accident. New Labour has returned to its modern role as a fake opposition designed to give a simple illusion of democracy and political choice.

The people on Anya’s list are not peripheral figures. They were at the heart of the Parliamentary Labour Party who destroyed Corbyn and their closest allies now again control Labour through Starmer. John Woodcock, now a Tory peer, and Wes Streeting were politically joined at the hip. Owen Smith, now a Big Pharma lobbyist (again) was once the Blairite choice to replace Corbyn. Privatised water director Angela Smith once pretended to support Corbyn’s popular policy of water renationalisation.

The politics of those people listed is, and always was, entirely four square with the Starmer group currently controlling the Labour Party.

Once these right-wing Labour MPs leave the Parliamentary party, we can see who they really are. Frankly, Starmer with his anti-union drive is scarcely disguising it now.

The United Kingdom is an entirely fake democracy, where a whole generation of right-wing charlatans seeks to follow the footsteps of Tony Blair to massive self-enrichment. That is the “alternative” to the populist English Nationalist Tory Party. The United Kingdom is a total bust, no longer a viable political entity. It cannot serve the interests of the vast majority of its people, and the elite in control have skewed its governance systems to produce levels of inequality which have become socially unsustainable, with no democratic outlet for change.

Scottish Independence will only be one aspect of the subsequent dissolution of the current UK structure. It will prove the catalyst for a great deal more radical change, and the much needed blast to the Westminster political system. I remain confident that we will see real and fundamental change, and in our lifetimes, which will sweep away the current political class.

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128 thoughts on “The UK’s Fake Politics

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  • Crispa

    In passing this morning I caught a snippet of a discussion on Nicky Campbell’s phone in on Johnson’s lying and if he should go. The level of the discussion suggested that politics is commonly perceived as a kind of reality TV show to be decided on the basis of Johnson being allowed to stay or be booted out of I’m a Celebrity, Love Island or whatever. “Good old Boris the Lovable Rogue” will always win this kind of competition over “Dull Keir”. That politics is about the serious business of government and responsible governance and to be treated thus is being lost in this media age of cheap point scoring in which a lot of politicians themselves engage. Jeremy Corbyn of course always being a notable exception.

  • Sarge

    Today’s Labour politicians are just a mirror image of centrist lib New Democrats across the Atlantic. Not only corrupt to the bone but bankrupt of ideas to confront the problems of the 21st century. They are now so hostile to change that they have advanced beyond smearing human rights advocates as antisemites to calling climate activists “terrorists” (An Ed Balls innovation yesterday on GMB). All of their icons – Sir Tony Blair, Mandelson, Bill Clinton – are sinister beyond belief, yet are still paraded and lionized by MSM. The Conservatives and Republicans are irredeemable but I believe these so called centrist liberals are worse because they have been able to advance and cement the projects of Thatcher and Reagan as the originals themselves could not have done. If Scots get another opportunity to escape them it should be seized not spurned.

    • Johnny Conspiranoid

      “If Scots get another opportunity to escape them it should be seized not spurned.”

      Unfortunately the SNP are now cut from the same cloth.

  • DunGroanin

    Last night yet again no ambulance was available for a possible heart attack for at least ONE hour. Our offer to call a taxi was rebuffed as the patient would end up sitting in a+e – queued ambulances get seen first!
    There are not even the car and motorbike paramedics on the roads anymore.

    The NHS is hollowed out and fully heading for the US model which leaves 50 millions there never seen to. And everyone else fleeced by exorbitant charges so that they lose everything they have worked all their lives for.
    Covid and SalesForce applications used to collect massive data on the British population with its data centres in the US is ready to unleash all the direct marketing.
    The propaganda of a failing NHS with never ending re-organisations to achieve that has seen to the BrexShittery narratives to win out.

    All of that is down to NuLabInc of the 1997 school.
    Don’t get me started on the GWD Starmer , the jailer of Assange.
    Every action of the Collective Waste’s ‘leaders’ is aimed at the preservation of the power and WEALTH of its own peoples now as te rest of the world has grown to better defend itself from our centuries long avarice.
    There is now no longer a pretence of two party alternative politics.
    The racism and fascism of a single rules-based order is all we are to be given.

    We are not allowed to travel freely and our disposable income is destroyed with undue haste.

    Mass protest and vote spoiling is the only peaceful way we can proceed as we await the paramilitaries and water canons and worse to be deployed against our rising impoverishments.

  • Aim Here

    For a while now, I’ve come to the conclusion that, while everybody knows the Labour Party is no longer a vehicle for social change, it’s not even a vehicle for putting the Labour Party into government. The primary goal of the class of activists that run the Labour Party – the Parliamentary Labour Party and the top-level officials is to have their position in the Labour Party on their CV, and springboard their careers that way, and it doesn’t matter either way whether the Party is in government or not. If anything, the careerist faction would much rather lose an election than win it, in those cases where they don’t control the party.

    There’s just too many instances of certain types of Labour politicos wilfully sabotaging the Labour at the election because they don’t have control over it:

    • The social democratic wing MPs who voted Benn in 1981 because (in their view, if not mine) he was an electoral liability and they planned to jump ship to the SDP.
    • Hazel Blears deliberately flouncing out of Gordon Brown’s cabinet wearing a snarky badge, on the eve of a European election (and somehow not even being drummed out of the party or deselected, because of it).
    • Hilary Benn and almost the entire PLP waiting until the Brexit referendum – and when the Tories were super-weak – to spark off the debilitating anti-Corbyn coup, on the specious grounds that he wasn’t quite enthusiastically pro-EU enough.
    • The antisemitism report that uncovered the online wailing and anguish of right-wing officials as they realised that despite the PLP’s sabotage, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party wasn’t so unelectable after all and he markedly increased the party’s vote share.
    • Alastair Campbell rightly getting drummed out of the party for campaigning against Corbyn’s Labour at an EU election, and that sparking by a ton of ‘me too’ Blairites like Cherie Blair and Charles Clarke bragging about how they, too, voted against Labour.

    Now that the careerist right have recovered control over the party, and are purging it of any actual dissent, I expect the straightforward treachery to cease for a bit (the Labour left are too naïve and loyal to directly sabotage the party like this), but I do still wonder why people should be expected to support or vote for the Labour Party when the guys running it can’t be relied on to support it themselves.

  • Squeeth

    Liarbour sold out in the early 20s (1920s that is) when it decided to make changed through parliamentary politics only. A hundred years of betrayal and people still think that it’s a working-class partei. At least the Snat supporters realised that they’d been had a little quicker.

  • Andrew H

    Craig writes:

    “Starmer has dropped all of Corbyn’s key plans to renationalise the railways and public utilities”.

    That is the correct thing to do. Renationalising the railways would be a terrible mistake. British Rail was mostly destroyed by union action – in particular strikes that interfered with the movement of freight. Our motorways are chock-a-block with trucks because the railway network was unable to provide a viable alternative. Compared with Europe and especially with North America, the UK moves very little freight by rail. In part this is because the distances that freight needs to be move in the UK are smaller than on the continent.

    If freight is to return to the rail network then two things are required: a) carbon taxes / banning of new diesel trucks, thus tilting the economics in favour of rail over long distances. b) Further privatization and deregulation of rail networks to allow independent freight operators to move driverless freight trains. The rail network of tomorrow has to be different than the one today – it has to be driverless and integrated with the road network so that freight containers can get to their final destination without repacking and mostly automated. Above all customers need to be able to trust that the service is robust and cannot be brought to a standstill by industrial action. (like the road network)

    From a passenger perspective rail is inconvenient and expensive. It seems the future is in electric vehicles and local urban railways rather than a national network of trains. A few intercity/commuter services may also be viable, but most is not. If the UK wanted to subsidize rail transport to make it more affordable it could do this without nationalizing it. However, there is little justification for pouring money into a lost cause – I cannot think of a good reason why train transport should be subsidized in favor of electric vehicles.

    • Bob (not OG)

      [Starmer’s dropping all plans to renationalise the railways and public utilities] is “the correct thing to do”.

      Is it? Surely it’s better for any profits to be reinvested into the communal infrastructure than to go into the pockets of shareholders (or ‘stakeholders’, as they will be)?
      Are water/gas/electric utilities honestly better now, all fragmented as they are? Are the railways better, with different companies owning different bits of track and rolling stock?
      One reason trains might be subsidized over EVs is that the latter use huge amounts of lithium, cobalt and copper (an electric car uses 2 – 3 times more copper than a normal car). That means more minning, more destruction…etc…etc.
      What really needs to happen is for us reduce consumption and production of all goods, including cars, consumer products etc. Can’t see anyone running on that honest ticket though.

      • Andrew H

        Bob writes:

        “Surely it’s better for any profits to be reinvested into the communal infrastructure than to go into the pockets of shareholders”.

        By that argument, Rolls Royce should be nationalized – it would make more sense to nationalize a successful business rather than one that is on skid row. However, RR would not be a world leader in jet engines had it been nationalized – this is the classic capitalism vs communism argument. I don’t have a problem with paying share holders, but where there is an effective monopoly there should be effective regulation. Retirement funds are often big investors – so ordinary people can be beneficiaries.

        Bob adds:

        “One reason trains might be subsidized over EVs is that the latter use huge amounts of lithium, cobalt and copper”.

        I don’t entirely disagree – since there is a massive transformation of the transportation industry underway, there is also a possibility for transformational change in the railway network. However, the type of change that is needed is more likely to come from private investment and innovation. I strongly suspect the railway network also uses masses of copper and iron – there is presumably a reason why rail transport is more expensive than road. Why is one lane of the M1/M6 more or less dedicated to trucks? (surely there are many more drivers than would be required to maintain a rail line). Is there more iron in the train tracks than all the vehicles? Lithium batteries for long distance trucks don’t even seem to be particularly feasible – so again there will be a window of opportunity to reshape tomorrows transport away from trucks in the next decade. Sadly I do not believe this revolution will come from Britain and definitely not from a nationalized British Rail.

        Reliability is crucial – and that means the transport networks cannot be held hostage to industrial action. Some industries are essential (water, electricity, internet), but also transport. Its just fine if Asda goes on strike because I can go to Tesco. It’s fine if Amazon goes on strike and also fine if a few truckers strike – but a national shutdown of the rail network is unreasonable, particularly if it is to become a major component of the transportation network.

    • J Galt

      The “Railways” are already “nationalised”.

      The State pays for it and decides which services are to run. The so-called private operators are little more than contractors working for the State.

    • Drew Anderson

      “…British Rail was mostly destroyed by union action…”

      I don’t agree. British Rail was chronically and systematically underfunded until it fell apart.

      It also suffered, still does, from not being a planned network. It was cobbled together from a collection of private lines.

      The unions weren’t blameless, but to assign culpability mostly to them is far from accurate.

      • Andrew H

        “British Rail was chronically and systematically underfunded until it fell apart”

        And British Steel was also chronically underfunded, and the coal mines were also chronically underfunded and then Ford Dagenham was also chronically underfunded. Perhaps all of these industries given global economics were destined to close and there is nothing that could have been done to save any – but to be economical and not require funding the only shot was to modernize and lay off staff. Nisan was able to build a competitive car company, why not Ford/Chrysler? The German steel industry was able to make sweeping changes to keep profitable business whilst axing unprofitable smelting. Meanwhile British Steel went bankrupt leaving large swaths of Sheffield a deserted wasteland. Poor management, union action, lack of vision or whatever – there is a reason Britain was known as the sick man of Europe in the 70’s and 80’s.

        Back to the rails. The fate of British Rail was determined in the 70’s and 80’s. When BR wanted to eliminate conductors, the unions objected. Then when they wanted to introduce automatic signaling, the unions whined about safety (although automatic signaling has actually improved safety). Then when they wanted to introduce driverless trains and replace station staff with ticket dispensers and automatic barriers there were yet more objections – every attempt to reduce staffing and costs was beset with union action. The death came with strikes which killed the freight business – without freight it is much more difficult to run a profitable rail business. By the time BR was privatized it was already ruined.

        To what extent we should be funding public transport I don’t know – but zero seems a reasonable answer (making the underfunding argument mute). If rural lines are not economical then axe them. Obviously, it is not always so simple: it may be that only trains during rush hour make a profit, but getting rid of trains at other times would make the service more unusable and push potential customers away. Again, if the rails also double for freight, then there is an economy that can be made. Why shouldn’t road users pay for the cost of maintenance of roads through car insurance and gasoline taxes? Similarly why shouldn’t users of public transport pay for the service? Those that walk/cycle to work should not be penalized and businesses that adopt technology for virtual meetings / remote maintenance of systems to avoid expensive travel should not be subsidizing travel of others. I accept there is some public value in having a road network even to remote villages and also in providing public transport in urban areas so that elderly and those that can’t drive have options. Public transport to villages – no way.

        • Bayard

          “I strongly suspect the railway network also uses masses of copper and iron – there is presumably a reason why rail transport is more expensive than road.”

          I strongly suspect that you have no idea about the economics of railways.

          “British Steel was also chronically underfunded, and the coal mines were also chronically underfunded and then Ford Dagenham was also chronically underfunded.”

          The difference is that the UK doesn’t need a steel industry, the coal mines were becoming exhausted and you don’t have to buy your car from Ford.

          “To what extent we should be funding public transport I don’t know – but zero seems a reasonable answer (making the underfunding argument mute).”

          If you believe the railways are an industry then, yes there is no reason to have any public funding. However, if you believe they are a service, as all politicians do the moment they go on strike, then there is no reason to have more than the most nominal charge for their use.

      • Andrew H

        The fundamental problem with some unions is that instead of just advocating for better pay and working conditions, they also oppose staff layoffs (the replacement of staff by machines). In business (banking, accounting) etc, it is accepted that computers replace pencil and paper accounting and other paperwork and word-processors mean no more secretary. In retail it is accepted that malls and online stores replace the village shop. Of course it is much easier for a white collar worker to retrain/adapt than a blue collar machinist / train driver – but failure to accept change just drives businesses into permanent bankruptcy. The rail-worker unions have been particularly backward looking.

        • Bayard

          Perhaps they apposed staff layoff because it seemed that for every blue-collar worker made redundant, two white-collar workers were taken on.

  • Ebenezer Scroggie

    With two rats jumping overboard from Boris’s sinking ship, a new leader is in prospect.

    If the new boy calls a snap GE in the autumn, wouldn’t that somewhat bugger up Wee Nippy’s half-arsed plan?

  • Republicofscotland

    Possibly Sunak has resigned from Johnson’s cabinet to avoid any fallout landing on him. It wasn’t that long ago the media were hinting that Sunak might put his name forward as a candidate for PM, though Sunak denied it.

    As for Javid, I recall reading that when he was chancellor a while back Johnson and his cronies called him CHINO, “Chancellor In Name Only” a term meant to be derogatory.

    • Goose

      Both can afford to resign their ministerial positions.

      Although, so can Nadhim Zahawi, who’s just accepted an offer to become the new chancellor. An interesting fact: Zahawi is Le Cercle’s former Chairman; Alan Clark, the British Conservative MP and historian stated in his diaries that Le Cercle was funded by the CIA.

      Sometimes it feels like the voting public are mere spectators to all the these plots and manoeuvres – Johnson has clearly fallen out of favour with parts of the UK establishment; the Biden administration in the US probably wants someone not endorsed by Trump leading their closest ally too. The way leaders suddenly run into largely media-contrived problems, certainly doesn’t feel organic or democratically healthy.

      As for the 2019 GE’s Johnson-voting electorate, watching all this unfold, scratching their heads – to slightly alter that that line from The Adjustment Bureau film – You don’t have free will; you have the appearance of free will … You have free will over which toothpaste you use or which beverage to order at lunch, but you just aren’t mature enough to control the important things.

      A cynical view perhaps.

  • Crispa

    I would say that the broad thrust of this article is supported by a Russian perspective:

    “in reality, the Labour Party is dominated by multi-millionaires, like the present Starmer, or Blair before him, who are actually more right-wing than any Conservative leader. They are about as socialist as the Queen of England. For them the Labour Party is merely a ladder for their personal power-seeking career”.

    The context of the article, nice polemic, “The Unravelling of the UK and the Western World and Their Reconfiguration”.

    https://thesaker.is/the-unravelling-of-the-uk-and-the-western-world-and-their-reconfiguration/

    • Andrew H

      …. the article mentioned above is very poorly researched geopolitical drivel. Most ludricous are the comments on NZ – clearly whoever wrote this has never stepped foot in the country.

  • Mist001

    Funny if Boris Johnson resigns and then Keir Starmer gets a fixed Penalty Notice from Durham Police and he resigns too!

    • Drew Anderson

      He won’t resign, ever. He might be pushed soon enough though.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if he immediately gives up his seat too. The way parliamentary pensions work out, they get 1/40 or 1/50 of their average salary (depending on chosen contribution level) for each full year of service; he’s just completed 14. I don’t see him hanging around, on little more than half his current salary; especially if it’s going to drag down his average rate. He’d lose the use of Chequers; the flat; the limo and the overseas jollies too.

      He’s certainly selfish enough and if it costs the Tories another seat in a by-election, I’d laugh at that.

    • Goodwin

      And the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford is kicked out of over his handling of a sexual harassment case eg he lied.

    • DunGroanin

      Watch out watch out there’s a Shapps shifter about! As we go through the pantomime of ‘collapse’of this government. Largely due to the failed mission of decades of planning in Bear baiting in Ukraine. And installation of a ‘safe pair of hands’ – I think that dodgy effer is the dark horse , much like Major was drafted in.

      For real revolt, we really need to see what the Dutch farmers are doing as protest. Police are even shooting at them!
      G-J’s in France are still simmering and will boil this winter if Macron is allowed to carry on with his front of neoliberalisation in that current pointless republic.

      Mass protest does work even in the otherwise docile U.K. with Poll Tax for example – a history that has been binned – Memory holed so fast the ink hadn’t even dried in the rag sheets.

      NuLabInc coterie couldn’t have risen without it as a catalyst of the Labour revival; as it was of the whole Scottish National Party after that country had been used as the usual laboratory for all such English policies for its subjects.

      The ‘Can’t pay, won’t pay’ campaign was an anti-Poll Tax campaign by the Scottish National Party (SNP), remember?

      Such conditions have again arisen by the cartel inflicted cost of energy and petrol rises, making for a regressive effect upon the poorest in our society.

      Basic foods have increased massively and even during these summer months people can’t afford to pay their bills.

      Where is the current political leadership that can use that – not in the SNP as was the case in 1990 and certainly muted in the Labour Party. Given that many a Tory voter / Kipper/ BrexShitter will also be suffering the current inflation and coming onslaught of linked interest rate increase (fake wizardry still espousing monetary policy as a means of controlling the artificially created inflation) ?

      Don’t look to stooges like Sturgeon and Starmers. It HAS to be genuine grassroots and local led.

      Let’s all be inspired by Dutch farmers.

  • U Watt

    Irrespective of how inadequate and rightwing the Labour Party are policy wise it feels like the Tories have exhausted their mandate. Moral authority forfeited, disunited, fatigued and out of ideas. A matter of when they’ll be ousted from office, not if.

    Then we will get another 3 decades of crowing from the Labour right that Labour can only win from the “centre’.

    • DiggerUK

      @U Watt,
      The only “mandate” the Tories had was “Get Brexit Done” …. if Corbyn hadn’t tried it on with a ‘confirmatory referendum’, then I don’t doubt that Labour would have won that election.
      The ‘tory landslide’ of an 80 seat majority in 2019 resulted from an increase of just 300,000 votes for the Tories. But if you do the sums it becomes obvious that, compared to 2017, about one and a quarter million Labour voters stayed home and didn’t vote. I maintain that was because they wanted Brexit, but just couldn’t bring themselves to cross the line and vote Tory.

      The ‘Red Wall’ collapse is a modern myth created by the media….. don’t believe me? … go do the sums and compare the votes cast in the 2017 and 2019 elections…_

      Labour conference is in Liverpool in September and already the input from the ‘focus groups’ can be smelt in the party. In my C.L.P. a motion to conference supporting Proportional Representation (PR) was passed; quite what difference to the working class that means we will have to see. But, if passed, it will hoover up Liberal votes because they realise there will never be a Liberal government elected to legislate for PR so they will have to vote Labour;…. but don’t ask me to tell you what type of PR is going to be introduced, nobody has offered an explanation yet!

      Here is a master class in demolishing Starmer’s spin from UnHerd on the ‘Brexit plan’. Targetting the middle ground by making themselves interesting to Liberals seems to be their opening cannonade salvo for the next election.
      https://unherd.com/thepost/can-starmer-make-brexit-work/

      And if you want to hear how the 2019 manifesto has been replaced with a blank space or, in ‘Starmerese’ “a clean slate” follow Labour List for recent revelations on how the New Labourites are beginning to reinvent themselves. Party members need to gird their loins and get active.
      https://labourlist.org/
      (Trigger warning, it’s not nice reading)…_

      • Goose

        Starmer voted against Brexit something like 48 times and was certainly the architect, along with the treacherous Tom Watson, of the now infamous ‘People’s Vote’ manifesto pledge. 80% of the seats Labour lost in 2019’s GE voted leave – seemingly irrefutable proof that 2nd referendum pledge was a ruinous decision. Though the PLP like to pretend places in the the North East were anti-Corbyn and upset about the bogus, press concocted issue of alleged antisemitism.

        Being politically inept, misreading the room again, Starmer recently committed to ‘Make Brexit work’ by ruling out mitigating it by considering a customs union or rejoining the single market, or a EEA /EFTA type arrangement. This has understandably enraged the pro-EU people who thought he was on their side. The truth is, certain Tories are more open to rejoining the single market than Sir Keir, whose position is now to support a hard Brexit. With hindsight, it looks like he and Tom Watson knew full well the referendum pledge would sabotage the party in Leave areas, and that was the only reason Starmer pushed it.

      • Lapsed Agnostic

        The Red Wall collapse in 2019 is not a myth concocted by the media, Digger – it was very real. If you look at the results, you’ll see that around 700,000 fewer people overall voted in 2019 compared to 2017 – nowhere near 1.25 million. A lot of these will have been Labour voters staying at home, but a lot will have been Tory voters who thought Boris was a priapic clown, but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Lib Dems who they likely viewed as (non-priapic) clowns.

        The reality was that well over a million Labour voters (mainly in Red Wall seats) switched to the Tories, but these were largely offset by Tory voters switching to the Lib Dems (mainly in the south). Plenty of Labour votes also went to the Lib Dems and the Greens – and the Brexit Party too, as UKIP didn’t field candidates in every Labour-held northern seat in 2017.

        So Starmzy has pledged that Labour will honour Brexit. Looks like we’re heading back into the loving arms/tentacles of the EU if the Tories don’t get a majority at the next election then – assuming that he can survive ‘Beergate’.

        • DiggerUK

          The yarn of Labour voters deserting to the Tories is the myth, the evidence of ‘safe’ Labour seats going blue is self evident. But do the sums, the fall in Labour’s vote is way larger than the rise in the Tory vote.

          The Tory vote only went from 13,636,684 in 2017, to 13,966,454 in 2019, a rise of a mere 330,000 votes.
          The Labour vote collapsed from 12,877,918 in 2017, to 10,269,051 in 2019, a massive fall of 2,610,000. That’s the best part of 2.3 million difference on the rise in tory votes.
          If you then factor in the increase in the 2019 votes for SNP, LIBS, GREENS, *UKIP and a small drop in the PLAID CYMRU vote you find a missing 1 to 1.25 million voters. I contend they were Labour voters who could not bring themselves to vote Tory.

          The other figure you give claims there was a drop of 700,000 votes in 2019 (32,014,110] compared to 2017 (32,204,184] My abacus makes that only 190,000…_

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_election

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election#Full_results

          — 
          * I have lumped together Brexit Party and UKIP votes.
          All figures rounded off.
          I have discounted North of Ireland votes…_

          • DiggerUK

            Just checked my figures, there are between 0.75 and 1.0 million missing Labour voters, not between 1.0 and 1.25 million…_ ?

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Digger. Looking at the overall picture, it’s impossible to prove exactly who voted for whom in the 2019 General Election. All we know is that around 2.6 million people voted fewer people voted for Labour, 330,000 more for the Tories, 1.3 million more for the Lib Dems, 260,000 more for the Greens & 310,000 more for the SNP than in 2017 (UKIP/Brexit Party & Plaid Cymru votes being roughly the same give or take a few thousand). It could be theoretically possible that 1 million former Labour voters stayed at home, and the other 1.6 million voted for the Lib Dems, Greens & the SNP. But then we have to assume that the 330,000 vote increase for the Tories came from people who didn’t vote in 2017 (i.e. mostly teenagers or people who have little interest in politics), along with 300,000 – 550,000 additional votes for the minor parties who, apart from the SNP, stood little chance of winning in most constituencies.

            It’s much more likely that most of the increase in the Lib Dem vote came from southern Tories disgruntled over Boris and Brexit, but that these votes were more than replaced by disgruntled former Labour voters in Red Wall constituencies. This wouldn’t be surprising when you consider that most of the latter would have been retired, Brexit-voting home-owners with no mortgage, who struggle to get their heads round many modern social mores, and were reading day after day in their papers that Boris was great and Corbyn was a jew-hating Nazi.

            (My mistake about the 700,000 fewer voters in 2019 – I was taking it from the Wiki article which claimed a 1.5 percentage point fall in turnout from an electorate of ca. 47,560,000 in 2019 – though 190,000 is even further from 1.25 million.)

  • nevermind

    Thanks Craig, a very timely piece if I may say so.
    Like a stack of Jenga bricks being brought down piece by piece, the Tory party is devouring itself.
    No real answers to inflation, no mental health care strategy, a cost of living crisis of immense proportion, no ideas as to how ‘getting Brexit done’ will enable our stagnating economy, a basket case at present.
    Those who are still clinging on to this clown show, such as Patel, Truss or Zahawi, are very likely the ones who would not find a job elsewhere.
    I might be wrong, not so Priti might get a job as a prison Governor in one of the Conservative’s extradition camps.
    The political parties are clinging on to their traditional system because they know how to manipulate it, cheat and get away with a slap on the wrist.
    Our County councils reflect the same money wasting dictatorial rectitude as their wretched Cabinet in Westminster and one wonders what has to happen to this self-obsessed psycho, for him to resign.
    Standing as an Independent alongside the political party careerists who know how to outmaneuver you, is a futile waste of time in a FPTP election.
    Now that the 1922 committee are drawing up plans for a leadership husting that could begin next monday, all the same Jenga pieces are hoping to build a new tower.

    A new system, a written Constitution and an end to the public broadcasting propaganda franchise, have to part of a new beginning, if it ever happens.

  • Goose

    Considering Johnson’s options. As he’s clearly under siege and in a political death spiral. If he tries to cling on they’ll force him out by a combination of BBC, press and resignation attrition. Amusing how so many who voted for him in that private leadership ballot now say that in all good conscience they can’t support him?

    Were I Johnson, I’d seek to call a snap election as Theresa May did. This will force all those claiming they’ve no confidence in his leadership ,to either resign their seats, or be called out as hypocrites. As for what will happen then; I actually think a six week election campaign will well and truly smoke out the wretched stooge that is Sir Keir Starmer. He’ll have to produce a manifesto and give detailed answers to policy questions, and Johnson, is a very good public space campaigner.

    Given the apathy for Labour, and the huge public dislike and suspicion of Starmer, there is every likelihood that Johnson is returned, albeit with a reduced majority. He could then use that refreshed public mandate to fire whomever he chooses.

    I’m no fan of Johnson, but underhand le Carré-seque plots, shouldn’t decide who the UK Prime Minister is.

  • nevermind

    Starmer accusing the Tories of being the ship that is fleeing the sinking rat, when it is really Boris doing to the Conservative party what Starmer is doing to Labour
    snap. Not exactly in the same manner, but the result is the same, a sour taste, mistrust and scepticism from voters the moment a politician opens their mouth.

    43 careerist who would like to be considered by voters in future have now resigned, after month and month of watching the twists and turns of this cabinet of self-interested clowns.
    This crisis is also an opportunity to act, I hope that there will be a connect awakening with people next week, maybe debate options, if that is a tenable idea.

  • kashmiri

    The United Kingdom is an entirely fake democracy.

    Yes it is a fake democracy – precisely like fake are all other so-called democratic countries. Foremostly, who has said that democracy is required at 100%, or that it’s required at all? Numerous studies have shown that the wellbeing and happiness in the population are NOT correlated with the quality of democracy.

    And the UK, despite being less than 100% democratic, is still among the best and safest countries to live in.

    Sorry for relativising the issues of the first world.

  • deepgreenpuddock

    Lots of vox pops on the box. lately. the ones from England reveal a population (or those selected by the bbc) as utterly in thrall to the Johnsonian regime – “what a great job he did with brexit and the vaccination roll out” or alternatively there is a focus on his charisma and entertainment value. It is concerning that so many English people are in this state of delusion. The overall impression is of some kind of mass stupidity/dumbfuckery.
    I think there wont be much change until there is a genuine cataclysm sufficient to shake the population into some new consciousness. I suspect some economic collapse is imminent or some climate-related disaster.

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