General Election 2024

Interesting to hear Sunak on the radio this morning essentially confirming that the Tory campaign would be as dirty as possible.

I still can't believe people vote with their own small sphere at the very front of their mind and two fingers to everyone else. Particularly if you're not struggling for money, Labour/Tory has very little impact on your quality of life but a massive impact on wider society. Roll on July!

don't underestimate people's ability to be disconnected from news/politics

It was just general chat before getting into the updates. But yeah I agree, which is why I pointed out the big rate rises triggered by Tory failures.

Ultimately there is a big gap in seniority, so there was a limit to how far I was going to derail the meeting by slagging off their views. But again interesting as although they live in Kent and I'd expect them to be more right, they are very bright and analytical so wouldn't have expected a knee jerk bias on rates.

It used to be true, but isn't any more.

This could be a shift in social attitudes - e.g. It's not just that a teenager today is more progressive than a teenager in the 90s, but that same teenager in the 90s has more progressive views now as an adult, than they did then.

Personally I think it's more that the preconditions you need to support maintaining the status quo are no longer there. I know I use this example a lot, but if you took Sunak's parents from 1980, and put them in 2010 they would never have a shot at providing him the same opportunities.

But overall I think current Tory support will come from a place of true conservativism - i.e. I've always voted Tory and I think I will be better off.

I still can't believe people vote with their own small sphere at the very front of their mind and two fingers to everyone else

They're always the flag-wavers too, going on about how much they love their country, but only voting for who they think benefits their own wallet and the rest of the country can continue to get fucked.

I commented in whatsapp to a friend of mine that the election will fall on their birthday.
They are a Tory voter with kids in private school.

Their response was "oh great, the day that life gets twenty percent less affordable."

It makes me so angry.

a) It is merely that a luxury service will now (rightly and not by nearly enough in my view) increase in price, due to a tax loophole being removed. If this now prices said friend out of the market, then they will join the vast majority of members of this nation who are not in the wealthy minority. Suck it up.

b) what about all of the Tory policies that have made life so unaffordable for so many?

c) what about all of the Tory mistakes that have made life so unaffordable for so many?

d) the labour manifesto and policy comes with fair warning and sign posting, unlike b and c above,

e) the money raised by charging VAT on private schools, goes to make a decent standard of living possible / affordable for tax payers. Of whom they are one.

I fucking struggle with having a Tory friend. It's so Orwellian to both like and totally disrespect someone simultaneously.

One of my oldest and closest friends, and I was best man at his wedding, is a Tory. I used to be able to tolerate it, but when he was bemoaning the costs of putting his kids through university, I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer and launched into a rant about getting what you voted for. The thing that really gets my goat is the lack of self awareness and how fortunate our generation was, which he benefited from enormously. He’s actively voted to remove those opportunities for his own kids, so he should fucking suck it up.

We’ve not spoken since.

Tell them to use the state system and save all that lovely money. It's only kids right?

I assume they decided the cost was worth it originally when choosing to educate the kids privately?

On a serious note, remember to tell all your (non Tory) friends to register, if ID is a problem tell them to get a postal vote, this can either be posted or dropped at the polling venues on the day.

@AdamBienkov · 1h So Rishi Sunak just took a question from a hi-vis
jacket-wearing man at a campaign event in a McVities warehouse.

It turns out the man is actually local Conservative councillor Ross
Hills.

You could say that really

*removes sunglasses

takes the biscuit.

4th July TDF Stage 6. Macon to Dijon. Sprinters stage.

Sunak hoping 'R Cav breaks stages record and the country goes into patriotic meltdown.........????

I was 48 yesterday, in my lifetime the only time the country was doing well - and really felt like it knew it was doing well - was the Blair years, which were what - '97 to '07?

All Tory governments have been disastrous periods with a litany of catastrophes and general incompetent grifting.

if ID is a problem

Postal vote does work obviously, but there is another option that's also free:

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate

Not sure how long it takes but applying now should easily have enough time before July 4th.

Nope, Tories hate cyclists going fast.

To play devil's advocate, sometimes people just want to moan.

It's not that extreme to bitch about something that's going to impact you. Imagine the reaction here if there was 40%VAT on Vitsœ and cargo bikes.

Tories hate cyclists

ftfy

Funny you say this, because the person who mentioned interest rates in my early convo, also referenced the high rates of the 80s.

There wasn't the opportunity to get into it, but the irony of them replying to me with and eg of high rates under a Tory govt wasn't lost on me.

In a way I think this is one of the key things for a huge chunk of the population. There is a cohort that grew up with the idea of Labour over taxing, over spending and trashing the economy. But there is a fucking massive cohort who have only ever known the country being successful under Labour and a fucking disaster under the Conservatives.

heir response was "oh great, the day that life gets twenty percent less affordable."

It makes me so angry

but the elephant in the room is people on the national average and below wages who voted tory. the top 5% of earners didn’t put them in power by voting for them.
(yes i’m fully aware they used other means)

the day that life gets twenty percent less affordable.

Remind him that a) who knows if that will even be in the manifesto b) even if it is implemented, it's the choice of the school to pass that cost on to parents. c) perhaps without Truss his mortgage would have been 20% cheaper

Also it might be worth pointing out that Sunak's last throw of the dice on immigration is likely to have caused very serious damage to the entire HE sector - likely to be a challenge for an incoming labour government to the same sort of scale as rescuing the banks was almost 20 years ago.

d) top being tight pay upfront.

The school we were previously considering sent an email saying you'd get a 1% discount if you paid all the fees upfront. Tbf it did also include a hefty disclaimer that if there was anti-avoidance legislation that applied VAT you'd still have to pay it.

Idk how you manage to pay all that in one go, but I guess some people can 🤔

On external inspection, I would present as Tory, private education recipient and consumer of, high income, landlord etc etc.
But fuck these twats.
Don't vote for yourself, vote for the greater good, because we are all part of the 'greater'.
Be tactical, flush these fuckers out for generations.
With that in mind, I want a hung parliament so that electoral reform has a chance.

Don't vote for yourself

The thing is when they're are such an absolute deluge of incompetent chancers I simply don't believe that there is almost anyone who'd be voting for themselves.

What % of the population is represented by Michelle Mones of this world? I doubt it's even the 0.1%.

I was working in a bank when Truss and Kwarteng crashed the pound. No one was happy.

along with tories coming to power, I also arrived in the same year so there is that data point

also happy birthday!

It did OK for you, so it feels like a good period? It felt like a good time for me as well.

I'm pretty sure there are things we could point to in those 10 years like PFI, TEH WARZ, the push for education in university, which on reflection might not be that great for everyone.

But yeah, the vibes of 97 - 03 felt great, I came home in 07 and then it all went to fucking shit from 08/09/10.