Thread: The British Prime Minister - for as long as there is a Great Britain

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

In ten years Putin, Xi and Trump will all be dead.

.....

The 'three out of four ain't bad' line might have seemed disrespectful to Jim Steinman.

considering he cant explain his stance on what a woman is its no surprise he can't explain his policy position. 20 minutes to make this post, its hardly worth bothering on here now, ridiculous.



Keir Starmer seeks an Attlee-style landslide without having to explain why he deserves one




All parties are evasive about how dangerous our current situation is. I fear that is because they don’t know what to do about it




CHARLES MOORE
24 May 2024 • 6:57pm
Charles Moore
Related Topics
General Election 2024, Keir Starmer, Labour Party, Net Zero, China, Russia




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Clement Attlee, Britain's new Prime Minister, is shown (center) with his wife as they were acclaimed by supporters after the great Labor Party victory
Clement Attlee (centre) winning in 1945. The post-war Prime Minister explained why he wanted power. Keir Starmer has not yet done so CREDIT: Bettmann
Could Sir Keir Starmer be Clement Attlee and could July 2024 be July 1945? That is the hope of the Labour Party: now, as then, a landslide general election victory, after 14 years of Tory-dominated government, for a party led by a moderate and public-spirited man, who, in Sir Keir’s own words about himself, “doesn’t do the tribal stuff”.




The comparison is not obviously idiotic. The two men have similarities – born in Surrey, bourgeois backgrounds, well-educated barristers, boring speakers. If he becomes prime minister, Sir Keir will be 61. At the same moment, Attlee was 62. It all feels reassuringly respectable.




Yet the differences between the two men are instructive. The defining experiences of Attlee’s life were as an Army officer throughout the First World War (breaking with his brother’s pacifism), his close encounters with poverty and the politics of poverty in east London over four decades, and his role in the Second World War coalition as deputy prime minister to Winston Churchill, whom he consistently admired.




Out of all this emerged his well-grounded (if misguided) set of beliefs about economic and social reform and an unchallengeable patriotism. With victory in Europe just achieved in 1945, Attlee could lead a party which offered a new social contract to a war-battered people. In doing so, he could rely on the highest level of public trust in our history.




With Sir Keir, the case is different. Obviously, it is not his fault that he has never fought in a war and has not yet been in government. But it is significant that, whereas Attlee early abandoned his career in the law to minister to the London poor, and rose in politics by doing so, Sir Keir built his main career in the sort of law which is itself political – everything to do with the doctrines of international human rights.




For Attlee, Gallipoli, Stepney and Limehouse were the crucible of his political beliefs and Westminster was the place to act upon them. For Sir Keir, his legal/political heart is with Strasbourg (home of the European Court of Human Rights) and Brussels.




One senses he knows this is an electoral problem, especially among poorer voters. In his opening campaign interview with the BBC’s Mishal Husain, he kept talking about “the way I think”, yet never disclosed what that way is. He must fear that, if he did, voters would not like it.




It is true that no modern society can function without large numbers of well-trained lawyers, but Britain, in particular, has traditionally understood the difference between the rule of law (good) and the rule of lawyers (not so good). In Sir Keir’s view, the world will be safe only if the lawyers are in charge.




Normally, when a party wins a landslide, it is because it convincingly offers change. The key victories since the Second World War were achieved by doing so: Labour in 1945, the Conservatives in 1979 (Mrs Thatcher’s assault on state socialism and Western weakness in the Cold War), Labour in 1997 (Blair’s Third Way) and the Tories in 2019 (Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done”).




Change, of course, is also Sir Keir’s cry – the sole word, indeed, on his placards. He has the massive advantage that so many voters want a change from the Conservatives, but what change is he offering? In 1945, Attlee had earned the authority to explain what Labour change would mean. Hence his landslide. That is not the situation today.




This lack of analysis of our true situation is not a uniquely Labour problem. It afflicts all our parties. As the campaign begins, one’s overriding sense is that evasion has dominated our politics for years.




It would be nice – but surprising – if this election were to change that. I felt positive pleasure at the news that the “wash-up” following the calling of the election means that several government Bills have fallen. One was Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban. Another was Michael Gove’s extraordinary attack on private rented housing. How did a Conservative government ever fall for such distractions?




Here at home, we have weak economic growth, poor public finances, massive welfare bills, failing public services, ill-controlled, large-scale immigration, and poorly drafted, gesture-led legislation.




We are taught to revere the NHS, yet are plagued by its crises – the need to protect it, rather than us, as soon as Covid struck; the 40-year infected blood scandal; the recent ideological unprofessionalism revealed by the Cass Review on trans services; the selfish strikes of the junior doctors. Still politicians dare not address its innate inadequacies.




Across the world are problems of public spending, government and personal debt, and the shakiness of banks and financial systems. These, which have weakened all of us in the West, form a backdrop to the rise of tyrannies which are waging full-scale war against another country (Russia against Ukraine) or threatening war against a nation which dares to act democratically (China against Taiwan, intensifying the threat only this week), or supporting terrorism against another state (Iran arming and directing Israel’s enemies).




We and our allies suffer directly the outworkings of this extremism and instability in our homelands – high energy prices, Russian and Chinese spies, cyber-attacks and social media campaigns, Chinese infiltration of leading universities, Islamist/hard-Left Gaza marches and student encampments which capture the public space and threaten Jews.




We also suffer a cultural attrition against our free way of life, manifested in social media, “decolonisation” and politicisation of the Civil Service and the workplace. Sir Keir, who will be our first declaredly atheist prime minister if he wins, pays no obeisance to God, but took the knee to Black Lives Matter. The Conservatives were only slightly less cringing.




It is extraordinary how reluctant political leaders have been to join up the dots of danger. Instead, they have preferred to concoct the “emergency” of climate change. The issue may well be serious, but an emergency it is not. The arbitrary 2050 net zero target, hastily imposed, has been allowed to expose this country to unnecessary state interference and expense, avoidable energy risk and therefore political insecurity. This has benefited China, allowing it to undermine the European car market without making the same net zero sacrifices, and Putin’s Russia, which had a jolly good go at taking the West’s energy needs hostage.




The Conservatives now tacitly admit problems by postponing green deadlines. Even Labour has ditched its vast £28 billion per year green energy investment plan. But no party has broken explicitly with green unreality and turned to look full-on at the emergencies we really do face.




Are we ready, for example, for the breaking of the next debt bubble? We may spend the promised 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030, but what would we actually do if Russia widened its attack on the West next week? How would we secure our supply chains if China suddenly seized control of the Taiwan Strait? We are not told. I fear this is because our leaders do not know.




Watch electoral argument on television in the coming weeks and you will see most of it revolving around voters understandably annoyed that their costs are too high or their benefits too low. No one is telling them this is the future if we go on as we are.




As this election campaign begins, Rishi Sunak is making clearer arguments about rising risk in the world. This is very welcome, but very late.


Keir Starmer seeks an Attlee-style landslide without having to explain why he deserves one

Poor old Telegraph. With the death of the Conservative Party and the slaughter of its Brexitory iteration, it’ll have no purpose in life and dinosaurs such as the increasingly decrepit Charles Moore will finally be put out to grass with all the other extinctees.

Starmer is for everyone now, the day of the fat cat, money grubbing, Tory lickspittle is over.

And you ghastly Essex lower end drag ups with your tongues firmly inserted in the anus of the Reform/UKIP/BNP can just forget any notion that hard work will change your miserable ignorant worthless little lives.

We civil servants and other important folk will now find our place in the sun.

Tax the greedy wealth hoarders and give it back to the middle classes.

Sunak will be back in California in six months.

Fuck him.

What a pity. This time, there really is no money left!

Only massive debt.

Whoever is elected will have to raise taxes, and impose cuts, just to keep the lights on.

Originally Posted by CharlesMoore-TheTelegraph

We may spend the promised 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030, but what would we actually do if Russia widened its attack on the West next week? How would we secure our supply chains if China suddenly seized control of the Taiwan Strait? We are not told. I fear this is because our leaders do not know.

Of course they don't know. They'll have to wait for the president of the USA to tell them what to do.

Is Moore the only fuckwit left among the battalions of right wing arseholes who doesn’t know the Russian war machine is utter shite and couldn’t withstand an attack by a Nato armoured division with full air support?

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

Russian war machine is utter shite and couldn’t withstand an attack by a Nato armoured division with full air support?

One might agree

How do you achieve full air support ?

You have to.....................

Give it a go, Genius

she'a going to need to be a magician or a borrow be

Keir Starmer’s ‘triple lock’ pledge: Labour won’t hike tax

The party manifesto will include a five-year freeze on ‘the big three’ after Tory claim of £2,000 rise

Caroline Wheeler, Political Editor | Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor | Shaun Lintern, Health Editor
Sunday June 09 2024, 12.44am, The Sunday Times

Sir Keir Starmer will launch the Labour manifesto this week with a cast-iron pledge not to put up income tax, national insurance or VAT.


The plan, which will be revealed by the party’s leader and his shadow cabinet on Thursday, will include a “triple lock” vow that a Labour government will not raise the “big three” taxes for five years.


The commitment is the same as the pledge made by Boris Johnson in the Conservative Party manifesto in 2019, which he later broke by raising national insurance to pay for social care and clearing the NHS backlog.


It means that Rachel Reeves, if she becomes chancellor, will have to make spending cuts or find other tax rises. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has repeatedly warned that whichever party wins on July 4 will have to find tens of billions to meet the fiscal rules and ensure debt is falling as a share of national income.

Keir Starmer’s ‘triple lock’ pledge: Labour won’t hike tax

The electorate had basically lost faith with politicians

Starmer failing to ‘seal the deal’ as poll shows voter turnout could be worst in modern history

New poll suggests Labour leader is struggling to capitalise on Tories angry with their own party following Sunak’s D-Day disaster – and predicts worst voter turnout in modern history

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Britain is heading for the lowest general election turnout in modern history, pollsters have warned, with the main parties and their leaders leaving many voters “politically homeless”.

The warning of mass apathy follows Techne UK polling this week which suggests that even in the middle of an election campaign with just a month to polling day, 20 per cent of people have already decided not to vote.

The poll of 1,645 voting age British people by Techne for Independent Media reveals that while the “won’t vote” percentage of the population is normally high in non-election periods, it is expected to drop significantly during the short campaign (the period between the dissolution of parliament and election day).

Apathy is particularly high among young voters, who say their problems on issues such as housing have not been addressed by the major parties in the campaign. Among Generation Z and millennials, 38 per cent have decided not to vote, almost double the national average.

And according to Techne 30 per cent of 18-to-34-year-olds are not even registered to vote.

Leading pollster Robert Hayward, who is also a Tory peer, noted that many people who say they will or may vote will also not end up at polling stations on 4 July.

He believes this is because many Conservative voters in particular are angry with their party, while “Keir Starmer has failed to seal the deal and convince people he is a prime minister in waiting”.

He said: “While 80 per cent say they will or may vote a lot of those people will not vote. So the 20 per cent figure of those who do not vote will be bigger.

“I have felt that we may have a record low turnout because it is clear that a lot of voters look politically homeless.


“The key to this though is how many people asked would normally vote. If a high proportion of them would normally vote then 20 per cent is a very high figure.”

Of those who were polled 1,111 (68 per cent) voted in the last election with the remaining 534 (32 per cent) divided between people who decided not to vote and those who were too young to vote in 2019.

This means the poll had a higher proportion of voting age people in 2019 than the national proportion of those who actually turned out to vote at the last election (67 per cent). Lord Hayward noted that this made the 20 per cent “won’t vote” figure “more significant”.

Polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice agreed that polls overstate the number of people who will really vote.

He told The Independent: “What we can argue is that the conditions that facilitate a low turnout are in place.”

He went on: “Two conditions are in place that suggest a low turnout. First the large poll lead so it looks as though it’s obvious what is going to happen. Second, there are only small differences between the two largest parties so it doesn’t matter much who wins anyway. To that we can add the fact that none of the main party leaders is popular or charismatic, which is why Farage can make waves.”

According to Techne UK, university-educated people are most likely not to vote, with a staggering 60 per cent planning to stay away from the polling stations.

The figure could be a rare boost for the Tories, with students much more likely to vote Labour than for them.

But among younger voters who have decided to vote, Labour leads the Tories by 54 per cent to 14 per cent.

The findings show that only a small number of people wouldn’t vote because they don’t like their local candidates (9 per cent), suggesting that the national picture is having much more of an impact than is typical.

Of retirees (over-64s) who are most likely to abstain, 37 per cent of those polled said it was because they don’t like either party.

Meanwhile one in three people with lower education will not vote because they feel their vote doesn’t count.

Meanwhile, after rows over the party moving to the right, supporting Israel and ditching left-wing candidates, previous Labour voters are most likely to abstain because they don’t like either party’s policies (54 per cent). Notably Unite, Britain’s biggest union, this week announced it would not endorse Labour’s manifesto.

Techne UK chief executive Michela Morizzo warned that the abstentionism will be so high that voter profiles for the main parties will change.

She said: “There is no question this election could present the lowest turnout, perhaps, in election history. The key issues with those voters who say they will not vote, whether they be young or of older years, is they say that they cannot trust any political party or politician.

“This trust issue, the breakdown of the covenant between the electors and those who represent them, is the key factor for why at this election those who stay at home and don’t vote could form the largest share of the election vote ever.

“We will see in the coming weeks but probably only [whoever] is really convinced of which party deserves his vote will go to vote. This would mean not a positive scenario for the Conservatives. Time and polls will tell.”

Ms Morizzo added: “The risk of a low turnout is very high because there is abstentionism among those who voted Conservative and have lost confidence, which risks adding to the traditional abstentionism, ie the most fragile social classes. As a result of the polls, we could find an identikit of the Conservative voter that is very different from that of 2019.”

Luke Tryl from campaigning organisation More in Common warned that a lack of belief that political parties offer solutions to fixing problems in Britain is at the heart of voter cynicism and apathy.

He said: “The big question is does the time for mood change mean more people want to go out and cast their vote or does the pervasive sense of apathy and cynicism mean more people decide not to bother?

“What’s certainly true from our focus group conversations is very few people are confident that whoever wins can fix the challenges facing ‘broken’ Britain.”

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “A general election is an important opportunity for people to express their views, and registering is the first step to the ballot box. It’s quick and simple to apply, and with less than two weeks left until the deadline, time is of the essence.

“All voters must be registered before midnight on 18 June to take part, and those that plan to vote at a polling station need to check that they have an accepted form of ID in order to get their ballot paper. Anyone that is unable or does not want to vote at a polling station in Great Britain, can apply for a postal vote by 5pm on 19 June or a proxy vote – where someone votes on your behalf – by 5pm on 26 June. Complete these tasks and you’ll be ready to cast your vote on 4 July.”

Voter turnout for general election could be worst in modern history | The Independent