9 minutes ago, ElectroBoy said:

Be interesting (or worring) if Reform can keep things going.

Look at the last parliament. Boris went from stonking majority - to an even bigger lead post him getting Covid + Vaccine Roll out. Labour were trailing badly in the polls.

Fast-forward through the parliament and 2 PMs later and the Tories are toast and Labour are in.

Its good the next election is still quite far away as things will probably change. For instance I can see Kemi getting ousted and Jenrick replacing her - he'll probably get a vote bump/ more interest just from the fact he is a white man which probably matters to the type of voter that they/ Reform are going for.

Yeh pretty much the electorate are not partisan like they were before the 2000s with less social bonds holding the (old) working class red wall seats together - exactly Thatcherisms aim with her divisive policies. So basically there would be big changes each election with people changing votes. That’s why Labour have to stick to the principles the party was formed to put forward in parliament a century ago and not start cutting benefits on vulnerable people. Or people will just associate them as light blue tories!

Edited May 10May 10 by Steve201

2 hours ago, Steve201 said:

Yeh pretty much the electorate are not partisan like they were before the 2000s with less social bonds holding the (old) working class red wall seats together - exactly Thatcherisms aim with her divisive policies. So basically there would be big changes each election with people changing votes. That’s why Labour have to stick to the principles the party was formed to put forward in parliament a century ago and not start cutting benefits on vulnerable people. Or people will just associate them as light blue tories!

Even if they reverse the disability cuts which is do or die on my opinion. They’ve still kind of alienated millions of people for a long time. It’s true Boris went from a huge majority to nothing but that can happen to Starmer too. There seems to be a weird aura around Starmer like people too scared to admit they’re wrong. He is now toxic in many eyes the same way Boris was and a fresh leader might be the only way to remove that image. But we shall see no signs yet of that happening.

I’m not sure people ‘admit they are wrong’ I do believe alot of the Labour vote was from those who couldn’t vote Tory this time after all that happened. So it’s a flimsy huge majority on 34% of the electorate.

Strangely enough I’m not hugely opposed to the PIP cuts, the rate at its increase is not correct for me, there’s people on standard PIP who shouldn’t be on it imho. I see it every week in my job in housing. And if they have PIP they are priority for housing which again destroys that system. Although I do agree also that it’s wrong to go after the people on disability benefits and not other sectors.

9 minutes ago, Steve201 said:

I’m not sure people ‘admit they are wrong’ I do believe alot of the Labour vote was from those who couldn’t vote Tory this time after all that happened. So it’s a flimsy huge majority on 34% of the electorate.

Strangely enough I’m not hugely opposed to the PIP cuts, the rate at its increase is not correct for me, there’s people on standard PIP who shouldn’t be on it imho. I see it every week in my job in housing. And if they have PIP they are priority for housing which again destroys that system. Although I do agree also that it’s wrong to go after the people on disability benefits and not other sectors.

There are many issues with it but ultimately they’ve encouraged awareness of benefits people can claim then complained benefits have increased. No kidding. Then there are no jobs and especially no good jobs so you can’t try to force people into work when work doesn’t even exist. That’s why a lot of the UK’s problems are purely a numbers game.

3 hours ago, ElectroBoy said:

Be interesting (or worrying) if Reform can keep things going.

Look at the last parliament. Boris went from stonking majority - to an even bigger lead post him getting Covid + Vaccine Roll out. Labour were trailing badly in the polls.

Fast-forward through the parliament and 2 PMs later and the Tories are toast and Labour are in.

Its good the next election is still quite far away as things will probably change. For instance I can see Kemi getting ousted and Jenrick replacing her - he'll probably get a vote bump/ more interest just from the fact he is a white man which probably matters to the type of voter that they/ Reform are going for.

People have no party loyalities so we get big swings like this. Reform are benefiting from the protest vote at the moment, as well as the fact they basically have free reign to attack all the other parties and don't recieve scruitiny themselves. It's very easy to say things they would do, but the reality is, they won't be able to do them as they won't have the money to do so. Interesting if any sort of scandal comes up around Farage too. For what it's worth I don't think all of Reform's policies are bad, but people (including myself) criticised Labour under Corbyn with the magic money tree and what Reform are propsing is 10x worse.

On 29/03/2025 at 18:20, Suedehead2 said:

The job of Leader of the Opposition is hard work at the best of times. It's even harder at the moment, so I can't see Johnson being interested. If they do try that nearer the election, let's hope he fails to win a byelection.

As a huge Boris fan I can't see the MP's putting him in the last two again to go to the membership.

2 hours ago, CRAZY CHRIS said:

As a huge Boris fan I can't see the MP's putting him in the last two again to go to the membership.

That would actually be even more hilarious than him failing to win a byelection engineered to get him back into the Commons.

If London is becoming shaky then Labour can call it a day

I mean it's not surprising. Momentum is in Reform's favour currently but I can easily see reform fading down again come 2029 for the next election. Labour really have to make sure they at least make the general feeling of the public more positive in upcoming budgets. This year's autumn budget will be a crucial point.

Truly incredible numbers. If this doesn’t change soon maybe his position as leader becomes questionable who knows. Is that wishful thinking

The significant thing for me here is Starmer dropping to slightly unfavourable among Labour voters.

Who would have guessed that effectively saying 'Farage is right, but don't vote for him, vote for us' would cause no increase in popularity from those who are already against you, to alienating the people who already don't like Farage and voted for you with the idea that you are not him.

Anecdotally I've seen a bit more wider praise for the government stepping up the immigration rhetoric as much as I disagree with it, it helps with the 'look we're getting things done' approach, which they sorta are, but the government's goals are more long-term.

Good question on QT last night about 'if the economy went up by 0.7%, is it too early to celebrate'. That's a great number for a single quarter, that works out as 3% over a year, but the important thing is that people need to feel it, and they aren't yet.

2 hours ago, Iz 🌟 said:

The significant thing for me here is Starmer dropping to slightly unfavourable among Labour voters.

Who would have guessed that effectively saying 'Farage is right, but don't vote for him, vote for us' would cause no increase in popularity from those who are already against you, to alienating the people who already don't like Farage and voted for you with the idea that you are not him.

Anecdotally I've seen a bit more wider praise for the government stepping up the immigration rhetoric as much as I disagree with it, it helps with the 'look we're getting things done' approach, which they sorta are, but the government's goals are more long-term.

Good question on QT last night about 'if the economy went up by 0.7%, is it too early to celebrate'. That's a great number for a single quarter, that works out as 3% over a year, but the important thing is that people need to feel it, and they aren't yet.

Yes pretty much nail on the head. Economically it's hard to see the pattern at the moment - much like under Biden, the US were doing economically well but nobody saw the benefits. I think unless you're a good earner or invested in stocks and shares it's hard to feel the benefits of good economy. Maybe it makes the autumn budget a bit less gloomy though, and on a positive.

I think one problem Starmer and Labour are going to have is to win back those Reform votes, I'd suggest you probably need Reform to implode, which looks unlikely at the moment. Still think the way to plant the seeds of doubt is to get immigration under some level of control and then the NHS angle. Make no mistake about it, those poorest will suffer the most with any scenario Reform dream up. And of course every business is going to love offering some level of PMC.

It was 0.8% this time last year it’s a really irrelevant thing. It’s just something political obsessives and economists try to dwell over. Nobody is any better off. Plus most of it is front loading the Trump tariffs which probably means bad figures for the 2nd quarter.

Immigration is a fascinating issue for me. I feel like the Democrat and Labour base have dogma about it and it’s creating this situation where the majority of people by far in the country can want and support sensible immigration policies but when leaders echo that sentiment they become more unpopular since to get in power of their party they had to echo the dogma and now they’re in power they’re echoing the sensible position but the base is like errr doesn’t that make you anti-immigrant and racist. Meanwhile you don’t seem authentic to anyone else since you never spoke like that before. Would be a problem for any Labour leader but especially Starmer who has permanently lost all goodwill with many people.

1 hour ago, Rooney said:

Yes pretty much nail on the head. Economically it's hard to see the pattern at the moment - much like under Biden, the US were doing economically well but nobody saw the benefits. I think unless you're a good earner or invested in stocks and shares it's hard to feel the benefits of good economy. Maybe it makes the autumn budget a bit less gloomy though, and on a positive.

I think one problem Starmer and Labour are going to have is to win back those Reform votes, I'd suggest you probably need Reform to implode, which looks unlikely at the moment. Still think the way to plant the seeds of doubt is to get immigration under some level of control and then the NHS angle. Make no mistake about it, those poorest will suffer the most with any scenario Reform dream up. And of course every business is going to love offering some level of PMC.

It's too far away to be seriously talking about projections for the next election, but it indeed looks like at this early stage we might have what the US had in 2024, a competent government doing well on the economy and quietly making long-term improvements, only to be drowned out by relentless negative media coverage highlighting whatever flaws they had and a bellowing populist promising magic quick fixes as their opponent.

Constantly having to worry about such things is a detriment to good governance, so I do hope the Labour team continue with this plan, which they largely are, the immigration white paper was being prepared well in advance of this week and many of their most controversial cuts have been to fund the NHS, which is trending in a good direction.

21 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

It was 0.8% this time last year it’s a really irrelevant thing. It’s just something political obsessives and economists try to dwell over. Nobody is any better off. Plus most of it is front loading the Trump tariffs which probably means bad figures for the 2nd quarter.

Immigration is a fascinating issue for me. I feel like the Democrat and Labour base have dogma about it and it’s creating this situation where the majority of people by far in the country can want and support sensible immigration policies but when leaders echo that sentiment they become more unpopular since to get in power of their party they had to echo the dogma and now they’re in power they’re echoing the sensible position but the base is like errr doesn’t that make you anti-immigrant and racist. Meanwhile you don’t seem authentic to anyone else since you never spoke like that before. Would be a problem for any Labour leader but especially Starmer who has permanently lost all goodwill with many people.

No. It's not irrelevant and to dismiss it as such is incredibly anti-intellectual, besides, I was kinda directly discussing how useful it was as applicable to people's real lives so why shut conversation down like that? What is true is that it is a marginal, generalised snapshot of how much money people and businesses are spending and it's entirely plausible that plenty of people do not feel it from one quarter to the next, so it's important to turn it into sustained growth. Q2 may well be bad, it's also being talked up as the one to feel the impact from the employers' NI rise, we'll see how that goes, though I feel the impact of that policy has also been somewhat overstated by the media. It being a similar figure from that quarter last year is growth from the relatively good work that the Sunak government sorta managed just before they got thrown out, that's what every Conservative pundit keeps bringing up from here until the end of time probably about how they were the fastest growing economy in the G7. This government have managed pretty much the same, and again we are the fastest growing economy in the G7, with 4 years left of the term.

'majority of people by far' - you do this a lot, claim your position has majority and that it's just 'sensible' without qualifications. It's a stupid way of engaging and appeals to your inability to grasp other people's opinions, any real opinion polling done on this subject shows that immigration is a contentious issue and everyone has a myriad of different opinions about it, most broadly support it being used as a way to fill shortage jobs for example. I know my position is a real minority one, I support largely open borders combined with an aggressive international aid program to remove the push factors from poorer countries as protective nationalism in the long term leads to bad outcomes between nations, but I have sympathy for the position that supports the more immediate humane immigration controls that are being proposed, and some forms of the Labour immigration white paper are exactly what is needed - they're shooting themselves majorly in the foot by ending care visas though.

Starmer's definitely having a major problem with authenticity, shouldn't have lied to the Labour membership then, it all started from there.

8 minutes ago, Iz 🌟 said:

No. It's not irrelevant and to dismiss it as such is incredibly anti-intellectual, besides, I was kinda directly discussing how useful it was as applicable to people's real lives so why shut conversation down like that? What is true is that it is a marginal, generalised snapshot of how much money people and businesses are spending and it's entirely plausible that plenty of people do not feel it from one quarter to the next, so it's important to turn it into sustained growth. Q2 may well be bad, it's also being talked up as the one to feel the impact from the employers' NI rise, we'll see how that goes, though I feel the impact of that policy has also been somewhat overstated by the media. It being a similar figure from that quarter last year is growth from the relatively good work that the Sunak government sorta managed just before they got thrown out, that's what every Conservative pundit keeps bringing up. This government have managed it with 4 years left of the term.

'majority of people by far' - you do this a lot, claim your position has majority and that it's just 'sensible'. It's a stupid way of engaging and appeals to your inability to grasp other people's opinions, any real opinion polling done on this subject shows that immigration is a contentious issue and everyone has a myriad of different opinions about it, most broadly support it being used as a way to fill shortage jobs for example. I know my position is a real minority one, I support largely open borders combined with an aggressive international aid program to remove the push factors from poorer countries as protective nationalism in the long term leads to bad outcomes between nations, but I have sympathy for the position that supports the more immediate humane immigration controls that are being proposed, and some forms of the Labour immigration white paper are exactly what is needed - they're shooting themselves majorly in the foot by ending care visas though.

On the growth you can have that view. They could have said 0.6% or minus 0.6% and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the way I look at it. In terms of real world impact this stuff is often minimal and can be swung on really specific issues. Plus sometimes they make a big deal out of 0.1% growth either way and it’s like it’s really not worth the time the talking heads allocate to it when it’s that levels. I’m not shutting down debate that’s just my view on it I put no weight on it.

On immigration no this is a bad take. Every single election pretty much people have always voted against more immigration or voted for less. I slip in and out of every circle I know how different people think and it’s not inability to grasp anything you simply won’t accept this reality. The latest poll was this https://merlinstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GB-Poll-for-Telegraph-9th-May.xlsx you can check it out yourself. It’s the same theme over and over. Yes it’s not black and white of course it’s a complex issue with different views but by and large two realities exist one is that the majority of people want sensible immigration policies and think they’re way too high and on the other side of that are people who view that position as prejudicial. I’ve seen people who have not been too bothered about the Gaza situation, any of the cuts, anything but this immigration rhetoric from Starmer had them furious. Overall his aim is 100k less a year by 2029 it’s a very weak target when numbers are 700k-1.2 million and yet that is seen as extreme and racist by many. The whole thing without dogma isn’t a tough one. Restaurants with viable options here shouldn’t be looking abroad for people who basically do washing up then those people can bring 2-3 dependents and after 5 years they can be citizens forever. It’s a system open to extreme exploitation and unsustainable. You just end up with overcrowded prisons, housing shortages and massive welfare bills. Everyone loses. If Labour had sensible immigration rhetoric I don’t believe Farage or reform would have ever reached 15% but now it’s too late nobody believes a word they say.

Some people have always voted against higher immigration, helped by it being a pervasive wedge issue that is always encouraged as a point of discussion by newspapers to keep people like crabs in a bucket fighting over scraps. That Telegraph poll doesn't seem too relevant, at least to how important immigration is as an issue to people, it's just how well they think the Labour government is doing on it for most questions and I'm not a fan of its question on net migration, 'putting a number on it' is likely to bias towards lower levels because people see only the number there and not its impact.

(that's a horrendous poll question!)

Which you are saying, there are two different realities. Yet those who constantly want it to come down do so without any regard for what lower immigration actually means, it means becoming like Japan or South Korea, still an aging population, still below birth replacement rate, with shortages in jobs that can't be filled because British people don't have the qualifications. The government is I believe looking at making it so that businesses should prove they can't hire from within Britain before going abroad, which is ideal, but they will need to still be allowed to recruit from abroad where it's necessary. You need people who are thinking about the consequences of such a complicated issue in government and not reacting to headlines. That's not a comment on what Labour are or are not doing, by the way, they've had their immigration plans in the works for a while AND they've stepped up the rhetoric in the past few weeks, that's just a statement on what ideal governance is.

This is a couple of useful polls on practical issues to deal with immigration (social care is one of the lowest occupations on that list for the YouGov one).

And then I like this one from British Future, as it's a poll that directly asks people about how they would feel about the impacts of immigrants working here, which is a more 'real' situation to present them with than scaremongering about immigrants, and generally shows the public with a more balanced view on immigration with tradeoffs. 'Don't reduce' at 71% for care home workers for example and a clear focus on reducing illegal immigration, hence Starmer stepping up the rhetoric in that area.

https://www.britishfuture.org/white-paper-attitudes-research/

3 hours ago, Liam Sota said:

It was 0.8% this time last year it’s a really irrelevant thing. It’s just something political obsessives and economists try to dwell over. Nobody is any better off. Plus most of it is front loading the Trump tariffs which probably means bad figures for the 2nd quarter.

Immigration is a fascinating issue for me. I feel like the Democrat and Labour base have dogma about it and it’s creating this situation where the majority of people by far in the country can want and support sensible immigration policies but when leaders echo that sentiment they become more unpopular since to get in power of their party they had to echo the dogma and now they’re in power they’re echoing the sensible position but the base is like errr doesn’t that make you anti-immigrant and racist. Meanwhile you don’t seem authentic to anyone else since you never spoke like that before. Would be a problem for any Labour leader but especially Starmer who has permanently lost all goodwill with many people.

Yes nobody is better off in the day to day, but a good economy means a government can balance spending along with knowing we have a heavy level of investment. I think if we can see interest rates down to 2.5% this will be huge. There is absolutely no way any of Trump's tariffs have had an impact on the figures. It's promising, but shouldn't be getting too carried away over it for now.

I think part of the issue of immigration is certain influencial people blur the line between legal and illegal immgiration. I don't think anybody wants millions of people coming in to the country through illegal routes. But part of the wider issue is our legal routes are so complex and we also need immigration to function our economy. But explaining that to a lot of people is challenging.

16 hours ago, Rooney said:

Yes nobody is better off in the day to day, but a good economy means a government can balance spending along with knowing we have a heavy level of investment. I think if we can see interest rates down to 2.5% this will be huge. There is absolutely no way any of Trump's tariffs have had an impact on the figures. It's promising, but shouldn't be getting too carried away over it for now.

I think part of the issue of immigration is certain influencial people blur the line between legal and illegal immgiration. I don't think anybody wants millions of people coming in to the country through illegal routes. But part of the wider issue is our legal routes are so complex and we also need immigration to function our economy. But explaining that to a lot of people is challenging.

The economy has been growing for 10 years and most services have been cut or got worse. Most income has been worse. Most house prices have skyrocketed.

This is the view I kind of hold too. https://x.com/stickysimba/status/1922922117919604916

As for immigration it’s a tiresome subject because people just repeat the same things no matter how wrong they are in reality. Safe routes, daily mail, people not understanding we need immigration it’s so silly. It’s about numbers. Nobody ever voted for 500k+ per year ever. Nobody ever said vote for us and get this. They wouldn’t because they would have lost.

Edited May 17May 17 by Liam Sota

Tories now below Lib Dem’s

16% lowest I’ve seen the Conservatives ever. If they were to completely collapse Reform could maybe push 40%

The Tories just have an identity crisis, of course spurred on by Boris’ great purge. Reform are hoovering up the right and the Lib Dem’s are eating up the middle class. So either they lurch back to the Centre or go further to the Right.