The General Politics Thread v2.0 (AKA the "Labour are Cunts" thread)

[The King Of Swing]

The cunt will be so desperate by the next election, he'll put 'bring back workhouses, for the poor' in their manifesto. 

[johnnyboy]

22 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

The cunt will be so desperate by the next election, he'll put 'bring back workhouses, for the poor' in their manifesto. 

That probably is polling very well with Reform leaning voters though

[Devon Malcolm]

3 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

I am sorry to say increasingly the greed of the parents of SEN adults and children. Not all of them obviously but it's definitely on the rise.

Can you elaborate on this?

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

It's difficult to do so because this is a public forum and it is easy enough to work out who I am other than just been Lion Of The Midlands and knowing my luck if I say anything it will get me in trouble so i wont go into specifics. I've worked around the SEN care sector for a long time and there have always been 1 or 2 parents who have seen their SEN kids as a way to make money, claim everything and pay out as little as possible, but it's increased a lot over the past couple of years and I'm not talking about poor parents in the first place. The ones who have money are if anything worse. 

[LaGoosh]

I don't understand why Starmer is doing this. Just the most backwards idiocy I can think of. I get that the strategy is probably to win over Tory and Reform voters before the next election but that's not going to fucking happen is it? What he's doing is being right wing enough that it will piss off all the left and centre-left voters and he'll not be right wing enough for the Tory/Reform voters so basically neither side will want to vote for him.

If this was all tied to his own personal ideology I could at least understand it (while never condoning it) but I don't think he even has an ideology. I don't think he believes in a single thing at all.

My Granddad had carers who were all immigrants and they were fucking brilliant and lovely. My son's nursery is staffed 95% by immigrants and they are wonderful human beings and I couldn't be happier with them. I love immigrants. They enrich and improve this country in every way. And I can't believe we are as a country are still banging on about immigration as an issue. It's just so boring and so tiring. This country actually has real problems that need fixing.

[lanky316]

When you've got the bottom half of the internet constantly referring to you as Comrade Stalinmer and other bollocks ("amusingly" while shitting on the right leaning policies that are pissing off traditional Labour voters) there's nothing you can do to try and win them over. All you're doing is losing "safe" voters so there's no obvious end game aside from political suicide. I genuinely don't know why he keeps trying to court people who won't give a shit what he does. I get that they've inherited a shambles and I've tried to grant some leeway to allow for all that but fucking hell if he isn't making it hard to defend.

[LaGoosh]

I don't know what it's like outside London but here every carer I think I've ever seen has been an immigrant, almost always of African origin. So to put a stop to that because we're becoming an "island of strangers" whatever the fuck that means...I'm just disgusted by the whole thing.

[BomberPat]

37 minutes ago, lanky316 said:

When you've got the bottom half of the internet constantly referring to you as Comrade Stalinmer and other bollocks ("amusingly" while shitting on the right leaning policies that are pissing off traditional Labour voters) there's nothing you can do to try and win them over. 

And that's it. I still see older, conservative relatives on Facebook posting memes about him as a lefty liberal human rights lawyer who defended Islamic terrorists, as someone who hates our country, and one person literally claiming that he was the most "dangerously left-wing PM we've ever had". Right wing memes still depict them as pride flag flying lefties who can't define the word "woman", while they pursue transphobic policies to the right of Theresa May. The Spectator just ran a story about how "Keir Starmer and his allies" painted the riots last year as a fascist uprising, but "many of those who went to prison were ordinary people with grievances". Labour are never winning over that crowd, even with all the Enoch Powell cosplay they can muster. 

Aside from having a deeply right-wing media and political class in general, it's a double whammy of two things - one is that "fascist" or "racist" are seen as insults, so people balk at people called it or even hearing other people called it, because it feels like an attack; it's impolite. The fact that what's being labelled fascist or racist often is fascist or racist is beside the point - accurately labeling it as such is seen as equivalent to, or even worse to, being racist, because people and organisations with a vested interest in not letting you know about power dynamics just want you to think of it as "bad words", and if "racist" is a bad word, then what's the difference between calling someone that and actually calling someone a racial slur?

The other is that the conservative voter base is largely made up of people who Labour just robbed of their winter fuel allowance. It doesn't matter if they need it or not, it's just the most obvious political own goal imaginable to allow the opposition and the media to paint you as robbing pensioners. 

 

I assume the rationale for some unpopular decisions - like the winter fuel allowance - is that it's a long way until the next general election, so they can afford to weather the storm and hope people have forgotten about it by then. But then fuck it, make the unpopular short-term decisions that will actually benefit people in the long run. Do the lefty stuff. Start building a case for immigration and diversity and a solid social safety net. Because the fact that they're doing all this while in a politically strong position, with a decent sized majority and years until the next general election, tells me things will only ever get worse, that there isn't a shred of political will within the parliamentary Labour Party to actually do anything but this. Their hand isn't being forced, this is what they want to do. Why would this party ever warrant my vote again? "Not the Tories" isn't enough, when, if anything, things are on track to get worse under Labour than under the Tories anyway. What's the point of them?

[Vamp]

I used to think Starmer was a dysfunctional dick that didn't stand for anything.

Turns out he's just an arsehole. 

[Carbomb]

41 minutes ago, Vamp said:

I used to think Starmer was a dysfunctional dick that didn't stand for anything.

Turns out he's just an arsehole. 

Maybe he's both and is fucking himself

Edited May 13, 2025 by Carbomb
Clayton Blackmore

[Chili]

I just don't understand how Starmer DOESN'T see that doing this will just make people abandon Labour and stubbornly keep siding with Reform and essentially hyping them. I just can't believe someone can not see that. Like he wants out after the first term.

[tiger_rick]

57 minutes ago, Chili said:

I just don't understand how Starmer DOESN'T see that doing this will just make people abandon Labour and stubbornly keep siding with Reform and essentially hyping them. I just can't believe someone can not see that. Like he wants out after the first term year.

 

[Guest]

I see the government is taking yet another opportunity to brief out how they're going to change the civil service, disrupt the lives of civil servants, and essentially take a pot shot for the sake of a good news story. This is small beer compared to some of the other stuff going on, I know, but it's so disheartening to have the people you work for go to the press to talk about how loads of you need to lose your jobs or move to another area of the country before even hinting at it to you. The last government took the opportunity to take pot shots at us all the time, and it was unsettling and awful, but this lot have done it at least as badly. The PM took some pretty hefty shots at us a few months ago, then wrote us all a letter saying "oh no, I didn't really mean you. I meant the system!" Then they unveiled plans about how they're going to change the system by sacking the lot of you". Cheers, Keirs.

The Civil Service is in dire need of reform. I know that, I think everyone knows that. We *do* need to get jobs out of London. We *do* need to get at least one of the Houses out of London, too. There are too many Civil Servants, many of whom are not well used. That's all true. But seeing as we're already carking it at the spending review,  you could just quietly, with respect, continue that process rather than briefing your mates for points that you won't actually score because no one outside Westminster gives a shit.

Sorry, like I said, I know it's small fry for most, but I'm sick and tired of it.

[RedTwoster]

The setup:

Thames Water’s senior executives will receive lavish “retention incentives” as part of a £3bn emergency loan agreed by the utility that is seeking to stave off renationalisation."

The quiz:

Is the following quote real or fake?
“We have a bonus scheme to protect our most precious resource, which is the senior management team”

You’ll find the answer in this Financial Times link. Not to post spoilers or anything, but bloody hell.

[hallicks]

I knew he was going to be a total shitarse from day 1, but I’m flabbergasted how much he’s smashed through the bottom of the barrel of my expectations.

WHY IS HE DOING THIS. They are not going to shag him, metaphorically or otherwise.